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I wrote a proposal for a radical overhaul (at the bottom) of our financial system. The first feedback I have received is that it would “cause a global depression for ten years”. This I got second hand from a friend whose brother is a nationally known financial adviser. That’s all I got, though. He didn’t reply to my email, and apparently doesn’t meet people for beer.

Pondering what he meant, it must have been a crisis of liquidity, which is to say cash for investment. If that is the case, then it seems to me we could address that by creating extra money for all citizens. Every citizen of the United States could be given $1,000, to be used in an economic investment. Or $2,000. Or $20,000. Or access to that money, as a line of credit held by their State government. This money would be created prior to ending the Fed.

Perhaps that would be best. Each State is given, say, a $20 billion surplus in money, from which all members of the State can draw for business investment at no interest. This would democratize money, spur growth and investment, and economic progress.

The traditional alternative is for banks to do the same thing. They have a line of credit which ends, finally, in fiat money. Why should the banks be the sole conduit of financing, particularly if the money in the end comes either from a government run central bank (everyone else) or a semi-private, semi-public financial cartel like the Federal Reserve? It is anti-free market and anti-democratic.

We need only consider two items:

1) Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012, and that amount will overtake the annual Defense Dept. budget some time between then and 2020. This is money which is not only not economically productive, but which acts as a drag on our economy. It does enrich those who hold those bonds, though. Whether we fight wars on terror or wars on poverty, the same people benefit by lending us that money. Our loss is their gain, and thus represents a de facto transfer of power as well. Who those people are is irrelevant, but some are certainly the Chinese and the Saudis.

2) We have some $200 trillion in unfunded Social Security liabilities, and will within the next twenty years or so owe an amount every year equal to our Gross Domestic Product in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Self evidently, this means that the status quo cannot be maintained through increased taxation, since we cannot take the entire economic output of the nation to fund entitlements. Further, to the extent we try to do so, we obviously shrink that output.

This confuses some people, so I will make this simple. Social Security is and always has been an intergenerational wealth transfer program. The first Social Security recipient–Ida May Fuller–paid in $24.75, and received $22,888.92 in benefits. It’s not a program which takes from the rich and gives to the poor–although that element is there in part as well. It is a program in which the grandchildren pay for their grandparents benefits. If the number of grandchildren are equal to the number of grandparents, the math can work. Demographically, though, there were a LOT of babies born after WW2–the Baby Boomers–and that number dropped off subsequently, such that if what we would have paid was $1, now we have to pay $1.50.

To this must be added the frequent increases in benefits, so called “cost of living” increases. Prior to the Boomers hitting, these could more or less be managed by increasing the payroll taxes. Social Security only went into net negative cash flow this year. But every increase in benefits has meant an increase in the relative burden on those paying it, since those putting in to it could not have paid that money.

To be clear, in theory–which is to say according to the deceptive arguments used to convince a skeptical Congress–Social Security was just Uncle Sam making sure you provided for your own retirement. The funds would go to a special place, and nobody would touch them. Yet, the program takes some 62,000 people to administer, and they have to be paid. How are they paid? Payroll taxes. If you ponder this for a moment, you realize that if they did nothing but take your cash and pile it up, you would still lose, since they would have to deduct their overhead. Not only can you not earn interest, but you LOSE in the bargain, necessarily and unavoidably, and to this must be added the loss of the value of money as a result of inflation.

How is this fact masked? Unfunded cost of living increases, which is to say increasing the tax burden on each succeeding generation.

Broken down, here is the situation, then. We can project with a reasonably high degree of accuracy how much money will be taken in in payroll taxes in, say, 2025, and how many people will be receiving benefits, and how much those benefits will cost. We are, today, taking in less than we pay out. This amount will steadily increase, year after year. The deficit will be $50 billion, then $100, then $500 , then a trillion, then 2 trillion, and max out at about $4 trillion annually. We will pay out $4 trillion more than we take in, for a number of years. Then that amount will slowly decrease, as the Boomers pass on, and we will again reach a balance of payments some time 20-30-40 (the exact number doesn’t matter) years from now.

It does not take a great deal of intelligence to realize this situation, particularly added to our budget deficit and following debt and interest payments from all other causes (Obamacare, wars, pet projects, etc), will result in our destruction as a nation. The American Experiment will have failed, due to fiscal profligacy and profound, stupefying irresponsibility.

In my own view, it is much too late to simply cut the budget or raise taxes. We owe $13 trillion already, and that amount is increasing quickly. History is rich with nations inflating their way out of debt, but relatively poor with examples of nations paying off bills like this honestly. They normally just fail, and in effect become the vassals of another nation.

Consider the example of Weimar Germany. Most of us have seen pictures or films of the wheelbarrows full of money, but not realized how they came about. Money does not grow on trees. Money is printed by people with the power to do so. It costs them next to nothing to make, but it acquires worth the moment they spend it. The money that filled those wheelbarrows was printed by the German government as a means of paying off war debts. It was economically ruinous to the ordinary citizens of Germany, but it was hugely beneficial to the German government, and to large industrial concerns with debts. They inflated until they were done paying the war reparations, then they simply revalued the Mark, and went about their business. This was not precisely the plan–I don’t think there was a plan–but that is how it worked out. It was the global Depression which brought about Hitler, not the hyperinflation.

We can, and in my view should, do something like this, but openly and quickly, and in a way which benefits everyone. We further need to rectify the problems with our financial system. My proposal for how to do this is contained HERE.

A key component of this proposal that many people miss is that I have redefined what Capitalism is. This is not a small issue. People really need to ponder this, and grasp this, since in its own way this is as original a critique as those offered by Marx and Adam Smith; assuming my logic is sound, of course. I’m seeking critics and if you qualify, please comment.

Assuming my logic is sound, the beauty of this proposal is that it could also be used to pay off the debts of all developing nations, which have been lassoed by global financial interests. Developing the mechanics of that process here would take me too far off track, though. The net is simply that if you can write checks in any amount, you can pay any debt, and if the entity holding that debt disappears–as in my plan–so too does the debt.

Net, net: This is what a useful, peaceful revolution looks like. This would be Hope and Change.

If this makes sense to you–if this is information you think should be available to other Americans as they assess the plans of various political candidates–then please pass this link along to as many people as you can. Thank you!!!

He does make some sense. If we look at the Pledge to America it really does sound like it’s lacking in the brass balls we need to actually fix our problems. This is what happened in 1994, and why it is so positive that Tea Party conservatives are on ballots around the country, most with realistic chances of winning.

What he avoids, because he has to, is the admission that the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid systems simply are not sustainable in their present forms. Everyone knows this. He knows this, but in exactly the same manner that he accuses the Republicans of, he forgoes a rational policy discussion by simply demonizing the Republicans for wanting to secretly attack pet entitlements which he correctly assumes are important to many Americans.

To be clear, the question is not whether or not those programs are desirable. It would be desirable for me to have a nice country estate and trust fund so I could spend all day writing, but the question is what I can afford. And just as I can’t afford that, we can’t afford these programs.

Another vapid piece of fluff, that keeps the troops in line, points out the enemy, and offers no solutions or even adult discussion. He’s worse than worthless: he is an apologist for policies of decline and failure.

I don’t think a person can be useful if they are not periodically wondering if they are being stupid.

Most of the evil in this world is done by people who think that intelligence and knowledge are qualities you can possess, and not the outcomes of habits you cultivate.

This is a response to a challenge from someone who disliked some comments I made on Glenn Beck’s Facebook page.

First off, I should define my terms. I consider socialism, Communism, Marxism, and Leninism to be four different things.

Socialism is an ethical system founded on the idea that inequalities in economic outcome are necessarily the result of inequities in the system, and that the primary purpose of political organization is the eradication of inequalities.

Communism is a system of controlling populations based upon naked force, propaganda (which is to say a combination of deception and brainwashing), and a system of rewards and punishments, such that conformers are rewarded, and dissidents punished. It is a two tiered system in which Party members have all the power and the perks that go with power, and in which those outside the Party get whatever those in power choose for them, and which can be physically provided, given the productive limitations of Command economies. Communists do not recognize human rights such as the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to keep and bear arms, right to avoid self incrimination, security of personal property, due process of law, equality before the law, the right to a writ of habeas corpus, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, the right of the people to elect their representatives, personal economic freedom to produce and sell goods for a profit, to trade goods for a profit, or the right to the free exercise of religion.

If you abrogate everything contained in the Bill of Rights, and then eliminate the ability to live directly on the fruits of your own labor, you will not be far off.

The principle difference between Communism and what is normally called Fascism is the element of nationalism. Communism, in theory at least, is transnational and does not recognize national sovereignty or the right to maintaim individual cultural differences. Everyone is to look and behave the same, which is to say however the Party needs them to look and behave at any given moment in time.

Marxism is an economic theory which predicted the collapse of the Capitalist system as a result of a process by means of which–year on year–the owners of the means of production siphoned off the wealth of the workers, such that a point would be reached in which almost all wealth was held by a very few, and the many would be living in such egregious poverty that revolution was inevitable. His mistake was to fail to realize that excess income for ALL workers, if saved, becomes Capital, such that all members of society can become Capitalists themselves. This is the nature of the origin of the middle class. He further failed to realize that profit comes not from stealing from the workers, but rather from the process of innovation. Since this process is led by the owners of the means of production, they are themselves productive and not parasitic, as he argued. The parasites are the central banks, but that is another topic.

Leninism is a means of implementing Communism. It relies on stealth, deceit, and treachery. Lenin himself made all sorts of promises to all sorts of people. He used the so-calle Mensheviks (this term is illustrative: it means “minority party”, and Bolshevik means “majority party”, when in reality Lenin only led a small group when he coined these terms. The word “Bolshevik”, itself, is a lie) when he needed them, then when they learned what he actually planned, he waged a vicious war against them. The story was that democracy would be enacted, the feudal land system would be done away with, and that all the subject states in the Russian Empire–like Kazakhstan and Georgia–would be freed. He consolidated power, then reneged on all those promises. He developed a system of propaganda which is best summarized in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and he was using secret police to terrorize potential opponents well before he won the war with the White Russians.

To be clear, Lenin’s principle difference of principle and method from the other revolutionaries in Russia was that where they wanted to be democratic and inclusive, he only wanted a small elite of professional, full time revolutionaries, who would wake up in the morning and go to bed at night thinking about revolution. He had no room for anyone who was not committed head to toe, and for life.

Leninism is a type of cult. It is very literally a reason for living for those who adopt it. Most of them change their names. Lenin’s real name was Ulyanov. When he became a Communist, he changed it. Stalin’s (“steel” plus Lenin, in Russian) real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ho Chi Minh’s real name was either Nguyen Tat Thanh, or Nguyen Sinh Cung (I see differing accounts) which he changed to Nguyen Ai Quoc when he became a commited nationalist, and Ho Chi Minh when he became a Communist, some time around 1919. It is a little known but interesting fact that Ho was a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920.

This brings me to a point which it is critical to grasp. Communists lie. They lie because they recognize no morality other than power. Marx himself had nothing to say about morality. Lenin commissioned some of the largest and most vicious crimes imaginable, all in the name of the revolution for “the people.” He didn’t like “people”, though. He showed that often.

Fast forward 50 years or so, and read Rules for Radicals. There is nothing in there about the difference between right and wrong. There is only room for success and failure, and deception and willful manipulation of the public dialogue was the primary means he advocated.

And one sees over and over and over very committed Leninists lying for years about their actual beliefs. Ho Chi Minh fooled people literally for decades. Fidel Castro said he was just a nationalist, and then when he took power, and began eliminating potential rivals who actually were nationalists, the truth came out.

An obscure but interesting example is Albert Pham Ngoc Thao, who was a commander in the Viet Minh, then claimed he had had a change of heart. He was made chief of military security for the South Vietnamese Army, and in that capacity was involved in several coups. It came out in 1975 that he had always been a Leninist, and had never renounced his old ways.

The two most prominent secret Leninists in the U.S. government were Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. Hiss chaired the committee that wrote the UN Charter. White, along with John Maynard Keynes, was the architect of both the IMF and World Bank.

So if people tell you there were never any senior Leninists in our government, they are misinformed. People can and do pretend they are “normal”, while not just holding radical beliefs but acting on them.

And we see people turn from Leninism. Whittaker Chambers dropped the dime on Hiss in the late 30’s, and FDR literally told him to “Fuck off”. That is, I believe, a quote. Chambers had a radical transformation. He became a political conservative and ardent opponent of all forms of leftism. One of my heroes is Albert Camus, who was an open Communist–I will use that word, since he for a time thought the Soviets had built something worth a damn–but then very openly and publicly broke with the Party, which ended his friendship with Sartre.

Or take David Horowitz, who was a prominent leftist in the 60’s, and who–when he realized that you can’t change human nature without even trying to adhere to moral laws–switched to being a conservative.

Or take the Neocons, who actually are a group, although you’d never know it. Almost all of them were former Leninists or Trotskyists, who got “mugged by history”, and wound up on a permanently altered path.

When people awaken to what Communism means for the people in the countries which have it, they can never go back. There is a line which cannot be crossed twice.

Now, on to Jones. Let’s start with this quote: “I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ “I was a rowdy [black] nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.” This was 1992. On his own admission, and as evidenced clearly in their own publications, his group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement was Marxist in its economic outlook (in their self appraisal), and Leninist and Maoist in its political aims, which were the organization of (presumbly secret) revolutionary cadres to disseminate propaganda, organize people politically, and if and when the time came to take to the streets both in protest, and–perhaps–open violence. This sort of thing fills the writings of both Lenin and Mao, and he organized study groups for the writings of both men.

I would note, too, that Jones, in 2005, was wearing a t-shirt that said “Kanye was right”. Watch the video, and decide what that implies about his beliefs in 2005. That is what race baiting looks like.

On his own admission, Jones was a “Communist” in 1992, and spent the next ten years trying to organize revolutionary cadres.

From page 40: We were a cadre organization that was working to build revolutionary mass organizations and to lay the groundwork for a future revolutionary party (or parties) by building a broad revolutionary internationalist trend.

On page 2 you will note that although the authors are not listed, they included substantially all the members of the group when it broke up in 2002, and that the document itself was a sort of Maoist self criticism. Public self denigration was an essential part of the Maoist propaganda system.

So we have a self admitted communist, who for the last 8 years has been working to bring together the environmental movement, the civil rights movement, and the social justice movements. We don’t have him saying, again, “I am a Communist”. What we have is the admission that what he was going WASN’T WORKING.

I put the issues and constituencies first. I’ll work with anybody, I’ll fight anybody if it will push our issues forward…. I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”

Does that sound like a change of heart? Not to me. Those are his words, several years after the end of STORM.

Finally, we have this video from a talk in a setting friendly to him and his ideas, Berkeley, California. Glenn Beck, who we are discussing, has the audio here. You listen to Jones. I don’t have time to find the exact spot on the audio, but it is abundantly clear from his tone, his response, and his facial expression that not only is he still a Marxist, but that this is so well known that the question is ridiculous.

Note, too, that he calls his group the “Pro-democracy” movement. In his view, America was not a “democracy” under George Bush, and now it will be under Barack Obama. This is a ridiculous claim. Did Obama suddenly create the right to vote? Of course not. He is talking about something else.

Democracy and Republic are both codespeak for Communist tyranny: hence the People’s Republic of China, the German Democratic Republic, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviets, at one time, were the equivalent of, perhaps, State assemblies, prior to the Bolsheviks making them one party by law), etc.

Or take the group from which Bill Ayers split off: Students for a Democratic Society. Did they want a system in which people have government recognized rights which protect them from abuses, and in which people could render their opinions in the ballot box, resulting in regular changes in government? Of course not. The setup is simple: Capitalism is about greed, greed is wrong, therefore “freedom” consists in protection from PRIVATE greed (self evidently, all Communists governments are far, far more abusive than the worst corporation in human history), and “democracy” is the system which does this. In order to become free, tyranny must be imposed. Only people with college educations at elite schools can be stupid enough to believe this, but they are out there. Jones law degree is from Yale, if memory serves.

Again, Leninism is about deceit. It is an evil doctrine, that results in human suffering, and those who knowingly adopt it are in my view likewise morally corrupt.

Van Jones is clearly such a person. He wants to destroy, not build, and hate, not love, his own propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding.

Edit: I will add, that Jones is very clearly MUCH more talented than our current President. It is a shame he has not seen fit to put that talent to use in a way that would actually improve the lives of people in the inner city he claims to care about. As things stand, the policies of the Democrats will hurt them worst of all. His “green jobs” idea was never anything but a redistributive hustle.

It is a pity to see the venom of Leftism ruin what otherwise could have been productive lives.

One could perhaps best understand the tendency towards “conspiracy as explanation” by positing that people so inclined are unwilling to accept that things sometimes simply happen by chance, and that some mystery is an inevitable part of life.

However, it is also generally the case that people tend to pursue their own interests. If you have a group with the motivation and means to pursue an end, quite often they will do so. Pointing this out is hardly earthshattering, or indicative of mental febrility.

Why was Kennedy shot? In view because Lee Harvey Oswald was a devoted Communist who opposed Kennedy’s Cuban policies in particular, but his Cold War against the Soviets more generally.

Was the Lincoln assassination a conspiracy? Of course: attempts were also made on the lives of the Vice President and Secretary of War. A system of safe houses and escape routes was carefully planned.

Was the Depression a result of monetary manipulation? Well, the same set of banks presided over the inflation in the 1920’s that caused generalized overvaluation of stocks, and overleveraging of many businesses and banks, as presided over pulling that same money back out for an almost equal amount of time. You had many thousands of businesses addicted to easy money, who then folded when that money disappeared, or were gobbled up at a fraction of their actual potential value. Conspiracy? The same small elite made both sets of decisions, and benefited from the process by eliminating over half the independent banks in the United States. You decide.

What I intended to post on today was weather manipulation. Is it not at least theoretically possible that the apostles of the Holy Social Church of Global Warming and Climate Change could affect “God’s Will” (the climate) artificially?

They can’t get actual global warming, but as I understand it some technologies for disruption have been in existence for quite some time, and there is no reason to suppose some are not being developed covertly with diverted Stimulus dollars. We have lost, remember, at least $6 billion dollars.

Let us suppose that we accept the rerenaming of Global Warming as “Global Climate Disruption”. They can do artificial disruption. There are chemicals which, when introduced into the atmosphere, do things. They can make it not rain in some places, and rain too much in others. Conceivably, technology exists which can make areas unnaturally cold or hot.

I am no meteorologist or chemist, but it would seem to me these sorts of processes would leave trademarks. Let us suppose the planes do this at night, and will never be observed. Still, there should be traces which can be found and tested, say of “Dyn-o-gel”, or silver iodide. I wonder if there is anyone around who would be both willing and able to do so wherever “weird” weather occurs.

Doing so would have to start with the presupposition that such a thing is possible.

To be clear on this, I believe that while there are many well-meaning and noble members of the environmental movement, and that we do in fact need to change how we live, that–as always in the history of leftism–there are those who want to hijack the movement for personal and group political gain. The global warming idea plugs directly into any quest for global governance, since we are told it is an emergency, and one which must be remedied through the use of international regulation AND ENFORCEMENT, and in addressing which we have to radically alter the global balance of power away from the developed nations–most notably the US, as we will suffer the most draconian cuts in our ability to generate and use energy.

Worth pondering. I won’t lose any sleep over it, but will end by saying that simply because people find something inconceivable does not make it impossible. I would have thought the gas chambers of the Nazis, or the death trains of the Soviets (they would pack political prisoners like sardines, standing, and send them up North with no heating. Once they froze, they would stack them like cordwood; I don’t recall if that account said what they eventually did with the bodies) were impossible, but they happened. Rape happens. Serial murder happens. Child abuse happens.

All nice people need to remember that not everyone is nice. If the Eloi had had guns and balls, their relationship with the Morlocks would have been quite different.

Strong minded people judge ideas; weak minded people judge people; and weak people don’t judge at all.

For most of history, evil has come with the mask of religious authority. The Pharoahs were Gods on Earth. Kings the world over were the representative of the Divine on Earth. Self evidently, priests the world over were, likewise, the annointed of God, and gained their power through the use of religious faith.

For all of recorded history, the power structures of all societies of which we know were connected to religious beliefs. Some social orders–notably nomadic orders–were relatively flat, although their “priests” were still held in high regard. Others, like the Egyptian dynastic order, endured for thousands of years.

To the extent that evil was a part of the social order, it was sanctioned by appeal to unseen forces. It is for this reason that many atheistic reformers view religion, itself, as an evil.

Yet, manifestly it has served as a powerful force for Good as well. Martin Luther King Jr’s religious beliefs were critically important to him. So were Malcolm X’s, or Gandhis, or Mother Teresa’s. Slavery was abolished (in the West; it still exists in Africa and parts of the Middle East) as a result of Christian activism.

In dark, hard hours, the faith in angels, and God, and the final reward of virtue have kept countless people from giving in to despair and hopelessness, and lapsing into power-mongering and hatred.

We have reached a point where the only religious narratives which want final power–which are anti-Liberal–are those of Islam and Leftism.

The former is, I believe, capable of internal reform. We need to recognize that most of what is most evil in that doctrine–the abuse of women, the exhortation to kill the infidel without restriction or restraint–are not actually scriptural. They are not in the only book which is claimed to be perfect, the Koran. As an example, it says in the Koran that all the writings of the Jews and Christians are also holy, and that none are rejected. They are merely imperfect, in contradistinction to the Koran.

This means that a faithful Muslim who was so inclinded could look, as an example, to the teachings of Christ as recorded in the New Testament, and follow them, provided one did not in so doing violate anything in the final revelation, the Koran.

Such a theology is not only possible, but represents the best path forward, in my view. Islam does not mean and has never meant submission to the will of MAN. Anyone within the faith who claimed that would be, in my view, demonstrably pretending to be a Prophet, which is impossible within their faith. That would, in fact, constitute de fact apostasy.

Islam constitutes submission to the Will of Allah, as represented in the Koran. And manifestly, there are calls both for charity and for violence. Surely this constitutes a recognition that both are needed at different times? Surely the ability of individual Muslims to make their own moral decisions, based upon their interpretation of their own scripture, was intended? Islamic tradition holds that every verse has many meanings–I believe the number is 7. Surely that indicates that Allah had intended his followers to exercise discrimination and judgement? This is my view. It makes perfect sense.

The same cannot be said of Leftism. Here is the point I wanted to make: as an atheistic doctrine, leftism cannot make appeal to any non-empirical entities or forces. Practically, they use “history” as such a force, in much the same way ignorant biologists use “evolution”, as if it could have a teleology without a consciouness behind it.

Given this, the faith we are required to maintain is one based upon falsifiable empirical claims. They claim that their doctrine liberates mankind. What is their evidence? Surely one would look to places where their aims have been achieved. What about Cuba? They did everything they were supposed to. And they are miserable.

What about less ambitious projects, say the urban renewal of Detroit? Failures, Utter and complete failures. $16 trillion in to the War on Poverty we have made NO PROGRESS. In fact, we are backsliding. We destroyed the nuclear family, destroyed the social structures which were contained in it, and ruined the lives of many millions.

Islam can only prevail is if we collapse culturally. It can only prevail if we are so effete and tired that we WANT it to prevail.

Leftism is another matter. In a world filled with examples of man’s inhumanity to man, Leftism is the final challenge. It is the counter-moral narrative which is ripping us apart, and sundering us from our Liberal roots, and sense of personal moral balance.

And it is demonstrably wrong, on its own merits. It makes no appeal to another world. It claims it can make this world better, and has been TRIED many times. It always fails, because it lacks an underlying, genuinely moral narrative. They want to make people honest by making it impossible to be dishonest. This is simply not how it works. It is like trying to force people to be happy at gunpoint.

If we can get past this hurdle, then Islam will be a piece of cake. That is a big “if”, though. Do more people want their freedom than want it taken away? It is an open question.

For unknown reasons, a message on this piece just vanished from my in-box, so I’m going to make a public admission here that for one of the first times ever, someone has read my work, and understood it well enough to offer substantive and valid criticism.

I want to admit, here, that the fourth piece in my five piece argument is by far the weakest. Frankly, it needs some work. It is the only one I don’t feel will necessarily hold up in a strong wind. I write so much I exhaust myself, but I think part of the reason is that my thinking is fuzzy.

Who DOES benefit from deflation? Is it accurate to say banks hate it? I think it would depend on what kind of bank. In the leadup to the Great Depression, the Fed made money easy for banks to get. Beginning in about 1928, it pulled back. Then it kept pulling back even after the Stock Market crash, then it kept pulling back even after unknown persons or nations began making a run on our gold. They said it was to protect the currency, but for all we know it was banks in the system buying up the gold. Nobody tracked that stuff. I don’t think they do even now.

What happened? Banks were faced with an asset portfolio based on loans that were increasing in value steadily, pari pasu with deflation, but which for that exact reason were going into default in record numbers. Those banks that were part of the Federal Reserve System–to be clear, the big banks, by and large–were able to get the on-going capital to stay afloat. Those who weren’t, went out of business. Less banks would seem a desirable goal for would-be “cartelists”.

Thus, all things need to be contextualized. I should add too that I think my differentiation of monetary and price deflation is worth underscoring. Monetary deflation is something that the Fed, the superrich, and banks do. They pull money out and warehouse it. Only those with huge surpluses can afford to simply sit on their cash. People who have hidden it in their mattress need to spend it sooner or later just to survive. By and large only those able to create money can afford to “hoard” it. Inflation and deflation are the evil twins which characterize what the Austrians call the business cycle, and what I term Monetary Mercantilism.

Price deflation, on the other hand, presumes a fixed amount of currency which increases in value as material goods become more widely available as a result of innovation. This type of deflation is seen, as an example, in the steadily increasing amount of computer power you can get for the same money. It should apply, more or less, to everything we buy; although for some things–like food–we may not want only efficiency.

Anyway, if that person sees this, this is my response. It’s the only one I’m able to make, without an email address.

Some of these posts come out, in my own self perception, like music on a radio station that is just slightly out of tune.

Walking up our local Main Street today, it occurred to me to contrast the colorfulness of Picasso–his radical whimsy, and, I’m told, genius–with his radical political views. Why is it that so many of the more creatively inclined people embrace a doctrine which would sideline or kill them if it ever came into power, if they did anything but toe the Party line?

I have said before that leftism represents a meaning system for those who lack one. At the same time, I think the progression is–in their self assessment–a positive one. If Capitalism is grey and banal, and utterly preoccupied with the unheroic, prosaic elements of human life, then SURELY ending it would cause the creation of something better. I think this is the logic.

Yet, to fail to plan is to plan to fail. They understand centralized economic planning, but they neglect the necessity of centralized cultural planning too, the propaganda and forced silences which attend the project. All logic and factual history to the contrary, they somehow keep the faith that from the overthrow of the existing social order something beneficial will come. Patently, the logic goes, since our system is so flawed ANYTHING must be better. Anyone who fails to understand that Regression and Progression are both versions of change needs to redo grammar school.

And we see this sort of criticism everywhere. We see aging radicals get all teary eyed when they talk about the brave civil rights marchers in Selma or wherever, then in the next breath praise the Cuban regime, which has inflicted and continues to inflict far worse tortures on its inhabitants than were ever dreamed of by the slave-holders. Self evidently, the curse of poverty lays across the Cuban landscape, unnecessarily.

It is in this spirit that we should take this comment, which is utterly out of character for Keynes in its candor: When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many psuedo-moral principles which have hagridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues.

By this he means the greed for money of the Capitalists, which is for them vastly inferior to their own greed for power. This argument is unassailable, for the simple reason that they jettion reason itself to reach this conclusion. Once adopted, it is beyond debate.

Only a willful fool could fail to see that Keynes was sympathetic to the Fabian Socialist aims of his life-long comrades, most notably his mentor George Bernard Shaw. To him we can attribute most of the decrease in personal savings that has progressed for the better part of 60 years, and which has made us, in our debt, so vulnerable in so many ways.

More generally, though, this is the template. Keynes and his Bloomsbury group had great fun mocking Victorian morality, which in their case is equivalent to saying “any coherentm non-ironic set of behavioral standards whatsoever”. Yet from this flowed nothing of social value, and much that has damaged and continues to damage our social fabric, and the enthusiasm with which we embrace life, and particularly our shared life together.

From Picasso’s bold yellows emerge wraiths of grey, enfolding everything they touch in the smoke of intellectual loathsomeness and moral tranquility even in the face of monstrous atrocities.