It’s said the market process accounts for mistakes through the imposition of cost. This is true inasmuch as hemorrhaging income will inevitably result in bankruptcy. The problem is, man was not gifted with the same incentive to disregard plainly untrue, and even destructive, ideas. Like an abusive lover or a fond memory, the draw of allurement can be too intoxicating to let go. The innate learning process becomes corrupted in favor of emotional succor that accompanies comforting beliefs.

Take frail womanizer and disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner. His announcement to seek the Mayor’s office in New York City brought about plenty of jokes at the expense of his anatomy-sounding name. Rumours have swirled about his possible run for months. At first, they were dismissed due to the sexual exploits that forced him from office. Now he is pulling an about face à la Bill Clinton and attempting to lift his public perception back from the toilet. Seeing as how Weiner’s wife (that just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) is a former aide to Hillary “no shame” Clinton, the crushing ignominy of her husband’s pathetic attempt to woo over girls will be suppressed. There is little doubt Weiner will be crowned king of the Big Apple considering the city’s affinity for sleazebag politicians. After the Stalin-esque reign of tyrant Bloomberg, a philanderer who never made a dime in honest cash will seem like the second coming. The lies, theft, and heap of unscrupulous behavior that defines the state will continue under Weiner’s watch. Except this time, New Yorkers will feel warm and fuzzy over giving someone a second chance; even as Weiner deserves as much forgiveness as former Governor and escort-lover Eliot Spitzer. Which means the charade of being a reformed “family man” will go uncontested.

Weiner’s second coming (it is impossible to reference the guy without inadvertently writing a mind-gutter pun), touched by cognitive amnesia as it is, is mild relative to fellow political events. In the sociopath abode known as Congress, the gears of war are slowly turning for military intervention in Syria. The usual cabal of blood-dining war worshippers is sniffing out their next feast, all the while pressuring President Obama into interposing democracy in heart of the Middle East with the barrel of an M16. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a 15-3 vote, passed a bill that would arm rebels who are fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. The alliance of Syrian dissidents with radical Islamic elements, including Al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra, does not weigh on the brains of elected imperialists. Supremacy is their target and whatever crazed, lunatic faction wishes to assist is given support.

Even this author will admit his own forgetfulness and ask: why are these Senators not yet behind bars, or worse, been assassinated by drone strike? The Department of Justice just confirmed the U.S. government was responsible for the murder of four citizens on account of their affiliation to terrorism – namely Al-Qaeda. These deaths were known about previously, but only now has Uncle Sam owned up to the deed. Anwar Awlaki, the most famous of these victims, was afforded no due process and was killed based simply off anti-American speeches. So why are Senators, who don’t just speak of putting arms in the hands of “the enemy” but actively support the cause, still walking free?

The self-styled sect of foreign policy “realists” who inhabit spacious offices in Washington D.C. are totally on board with the arming of jihadists in Syria. These Straussian chin-curlers present themselves as being above the fray of moral considerations. To the realist, simpleton notions of “good,” “bad,” “right,” or “wrong” are best left to the weak-minded folk. When confronted by the plain immorality of their hegemonic intentions, the term “gray area” is employed as they scoff at the immaturity of deductive reasoning. The foreign policy of these pragmatists is, somehow, indecipherable to anyone not residing within their bubble of influence.

But to assume foreign policy “realists” truly have America’s best interest at heart, the arming of Syrian rebels still fails to pass the sniff test of common sense. Washington’s last dabble into assisting the overthrow of an uncooperative regime backfired spectacularly. Libya, a country most Americans never heard of it prior to 2010, has been given over to Islamic radicalism in the absence of Muammar al-Gaddafi. Ambassador Chris Stevens infamously lost his life as a consequence of the coup, and its doubtful he will be the last. The disastrous invasion of Iraq has resulted in more sectarian violence than before Saddam Hussein’s ousting. Each intervention sows the seeds for another imperial adventure somewhere down the line – like a domino effect initiated by a meddlesome child. With fresh new sanctions on Iran and the war drums being sounded more forcefully and rhythmically for bloodshed in Syria, perpetual war, and the needless death it carries, show no signs of stopping. Instead of learning from the horror, the people clamor for “victory.”

If the basking in the holy light of incessant warmongering were not enough to prove human stubbornness, the recent tornado in Moore, Oklahoma should solidify my dispirited contention. The E-F5-measured storm obliterated everything it came in touch with, leaving an estimated $2 billion worth of damage in its path. Thousands lost their homes and face indefinite displacement. It’s only a matter of time before Keynesian devotees declare the storm an economic boon for the Sooner State. And I can only imagine the affectionate gaze from neoconservatives who revel in societal demolition.

The only thing that could make the Oklahoma tornado worse was if it could have been prevented. Unfortunately, due diligence says that yes, if the people had heeded earlier warnings, the catastrophe could have been largely avoided. Back in 1999, a tornado of similar strength tore through the same area. Experts calculated a 1% possibility of such an event happening again. Even in a world of measurable science, statistics is often a cruel predictor.

If that were the only enticement at work, the victims could be spared a bit of empathy. But the state, in an ongoing battle to capture hearts and minds, provided another form of encouragement: disaster insurance. When the government compensates victims of natural disaster with stolen money, it explicitly sends a signal to the receiver that relief will be available at any time in the future. It’s actually an anomaly to call government disaster relief insurance considering it’s a guaranteed payout regardless of circumstance. Unlike private insurance brokers, politicians and bureaucrats require no prior qualifications to dole out tax dollars – other than reassuring for themselves a safe reelection. It’s hard to say how many Moore residents were baited into living on a proven path of destruction. Washington’s readiness to aid the irresponsible was an assurance many, no doubt, kept in the back of their mind. The bleeding-hearts in the press who scream for disaster relief every time a barn topples over reject this lesson, seeing as how it renders their orchestrated compassion useless.

The mule, being a universal symbol for stubbornness, has become indistinguishable from the average news and politics ingester. Toeing the carefully-planned ideological path of media personalities, divergence from party line is a hurdle most pedestrians are incapable of clearing. When espousers of an ideology commit, or lend support to, a policy that is costly in terms of money or moral character, no apology is given. The same refuse-to-repent mindset seeps over the rest of life’s experiences. The man who sees himself as a firebrand is nothing but molded clay. It almost makes apoliticalism appear as a mark of intelligence.

Immanuel Kant famously referred to humanity as “crooked timber;” widely regarded as a reference to mankind’s inherent nature to sin. We accept this characterization, laugh at it, and offer no rebuttal to its existence. What’s not done is a forthright attempt to continually rectify our wrongs and pursue truth – even when it conflicts with inner bias. It’s far less painful to not acknowledge faulty logic. Perhaps there is a law of human nature for this, waiting to be discovered. If someone were to look back, many a millennia from now, and attempt to put his finger on man’s core fault, they could certainly formulate one.

James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. Send him mail

But like everything else, every now and then there a silver lining or a bright star that breaks through the darkness and demands to be noticed. It might be a brave, risk-taking principal who institutes a new system of reprimanding justice. It might be the teacher who takes it upon his or herself, at their own personal cost, to start an after-school program that is actually geared towards teaching kids self-worth or some valuable skill. It might be the popular jock who looks out for the bullied or makes the nerds feel welcome.

For me, that bright star was my 4th and 5th grade teacher Marcus Allen. Mr. Allen was probably in his early 30’s back in the late 1990’s. I don’t remember where he was from, or where he went to school, or why he wanted to be a teacher. I don’t remember who was in my class, I couldn’t tell you any highlights about my life at that time (except for my all-time crush, and first “girlfriend,” Brianna Suttner.) But I remember Mr. Allen changed my life with one simple philosophy that boiled down to a simple word.

Now I won’t lie about my public education experience. I grew up in Allouez, one of the moneyed suburbs of Green Bay, Wisconsin. There wasn’t a gang problem, or crime, or a deteriorating city to contend with. There weren’t many “problem students” who put others in danger or anything of that sort. Our problem was more benign and more malignant than that. Our problem was the excruciating mediocrity that has come to define the American education system.

The teachers didn’t care enough to challenge the kids. In Wisconsin, the teacher’s union comes first – and that means politics comes before kids. I wouldn’t make this sort of connection until much later during my political socialization. Looking back, it was clear the signs were all there. But as a grown man I now realize just what it was that made me who I am today. I know what informs my philosophy and my role in the world. It was that one, single word; the word Mr. Allen always asked, and always demanded we ask about everything at all times.

“Why?”

Everything boiled down to this magical, powerful little word. You don’t like this reading selection. Why? You didn’t complete your assignment. Why? You don’t think this is the most effective way to teach. Why? You would rather read individually than as a group. Why?

Mr. Allen, always asking why. Always demanding not just that we answer his inquiries, but to always and everywhere form our own. This simple lword bred in me the sometimes tiresome, but always necessary methodology that informs my beliefs, my philosophy, and my raison detre.

Later on in high school, every day was little more than an indoctrination camp in the mold of John Dewey. The kids were to be molded into nice little nihilistic automatons for the State – coppertops who would never question authority and never reach for anything more than a dead-end job that provided the revenue needed for this, that, and the other. George Bush was the devil. (Here I will not argue, but only mention that rank partisanship is the last refuge of a cheap, petty, bankrupt mind.) “Why?” had suddenly become very out of fashion and frowned upon.

It’s not really much different elsewhere in life. At most of my previous jobs, the question itself drew contempt and singled me out as a troublemaker and a malcontent. But somewhere along the line, it started paying dividends. It got me where I am today.

Complete strangers who live 1,000 miles away from me believe they have a prior claim to my property. Why? A radically impoverished nation 7,000 miles away from my country was bombed by my government for several years. Why? Politics comes before the kids. Why? One group of citizens must be robbed for the benefit of another group. Why? Greed is bad, unless you demand the property of others at the end of a gun barrel. Why? Country X is populated by evil sub-humans who must be destroyed. Why? “That’s just the way it is.” WHY?

This demand for answers, which is utterly absent in the vast majority of the American population, was socialized into my very being by a young teacher who required a full-spectrum analysis of my life and the world I live in. Just ask my parents what effect Mr. Allen had on me!

I suppose my point here is two-fold. First, I want to contact Mr. Allen and thank him. I want to thank him for shaking me out of the one-size-fits-all stupor of the “education” system. I want to know if there are any others out there who were blessed enough to be truly taught by this unsung hero. And secondly, I want to ask why. I want to ask teachers, parents, students, and politicians why they are accepting such terrible failure on the part of the education system. I want to ask why money and power and politics comes before the kids. I want to ask why, after decades of incompetence and disastrous results, the American people do not ask why they still make brainless claims like “we must have a compulsory, universal public education system.” I want to ask why there are not more heroes like Mr. Allen.

Derek is a writer in Virginia, following the Rothbardian ethic and living by the Misesian motto, Tu Ne Cede Malis.

Ah, spring: the birds are singing, the flowers blooming, and liberty is on everyone’s mind!

Come on down to the Pauper’s Pub, next Thursday, May 30th for another exciting night of liberty and economics!

Our featured speaker will be the inimitable Dr. Pierre Desrochers (professor of geography at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and author of the excellent book, “The Locavore’s Dilemma“), who will be talking about Rachel Carson, the late founder of the modern environmentalist movement.

We’re on the second floor, at 7 pm, as usual.

Pauper’s Pub
539 Bloor St. West, Toronto, ON
M5S 1Y6

Right next to Bathurst station.

See you there!

Join the Facebook event!

https://www.facebook.com/events/390823844361302/

Ash Navabi is a student at Ryerson University. Send him mail.

The American Conservative

In a recent article, critic Noah Millman questions Kevin Drum over his advocacy for immigration reform. Drum, in a blog post for the liberal publication Mother Jones, cited a study of the hiring patterns of the North Carolina Growers Association that demonstrated an unwillingness on the part of American citizens to perform agricultural labor. According to the study, 80% of native workers hired to pick crops quit after two months on the job. The spread between presumably Mexican, and thus illegal, laborers was significant enough to indicate an overwhelming reluctance by Americans to partake in physically arduous work. Drum, whose chief political influences are fascist Franklin Roosevelt and flippant reversals on the efficacy of the Iraq War (invasion), claims the study bolsters the need for immigration reform that allows for more guest workers. Millman disagrees to the extent that such a policy invites more low-wage positions, and hence drags down national living standards. My immediate take: if Americans, as lethargic as they act, find picking tomatoes below their misplaced, nationalist-driven superiority, then Mexicans, Latinos, or whatever politically-correct term is fashionable for fence-hoppers below the Southern border, should not be barred from contractual employment. Violence in the name of jingoism is still violence, driven by the zealotry of invented boundaries.

Millman does bring up a good point: leftist thinkers who push for less stringent immigration requirements are doing so on the basis of filling low-wage jobs in the agricultural sector. Yet when their opinions drift on to other industries, progressives are quick to decry the inhumanity of any wage less than six figures. It’s as if they want all the spoils of economic opportunity while pressing for the stifling mandates that curtail it. Inconsistency is a prerequisite to becoming a card-carrying member of the Progressive crowd. Millman’s criticism is spot-on in that regard but misses the larger picture.

I am always left scratching my head as to why high wages in themselves are seen as important for societal betterment. Wages are, after all, determined solely through one’s marginal productive capacity – or how much they contribute to an employer’s profit gains. Workers who fail to bring in revenue only act as a kind of infection, draining the life out of business. In any reasonable environment, unproductive employees would be told to improve or be let go. But in the fantasies of society’s most apt to dictate, no adverse consequences could possibly occur through state interference in the marketplace. Even Millman falls into the trap of proposing a “substantially higher minimum wage” on account of labor’s unequal “bargaining power to capital.” The result of mandated wage floors is always the same: imposed unemployment of anyone not productive enough to bypass the legislatively-established price floor. No amount of pathos or rhetorical pride can budge irrefutable law. What makes Millman’s error in understanding all the more surprising is that he clearly understands David Ricardo’s principles of comparative advantage.

The focus on wages seen and heard by a lion’s share of people is demonstrative of just how widespread ignorance is when it comes to basic economics. In the handful of low-skill jobs I have had, most of my superiors and peers paid heavy attention to their dollar-per-hour wage – I being among them on a count of shared crudeness. Unions, teachers, politicians, professors, and even some heads of business all enjoy focusing on the so-called price of labor. Neither of these exploitive bunches find it hypocritical their lives are enhanced immensely by products created those whom they portray as slaves. Little thought is given to the massive array of goods built with the toil and sweat of the lesser paid. Abundant harvests of food, looming skyscrapers of steel, and landscapes of elegant beauty come to mind. Production is the engine of wealth creation – not wages. The old fable of Henry Ford paying his employees $5 a day so they could, in turn, purchase the cars they produced is nothing more than leftist disinformation. Ford was able to pay higher-than-market wages because of his innovative capital investment in assembly line equipment.

Reading so many analyses on the utility of high wages, I can’t help but think the writers, as mature and observant as they may be, are at a total loss to explain why man accepts employment from others. Certainly, there are economic thinkers whose only function is to advocate for vigorous intervention on behalf of the state. Regardless of the detrimental effects of their preferred policy, these undeservedly respected commentators will cling to the religion of statism as a kind of cult, incapable of being refuted by logic or reason. Keynesians are the most mendacious of offenders. No matter the clear failure of econometric predictions or empirical debunking of the Phillips curve, devotees of Lord Keynes will cling to the Bible of The General Theory like preachers of geocentrism.

The criticism of immigration and low wages by Millman separates itself from the progressive cacophony polluting the mainstream press, but it still misses mankind’s purpose in the market economy. Nobody works for money. The end desire is greater availability of scarce resources. If we lived in the Garden of Eden, there would be no need for jobs. Everything would be plentiful – with the exception of one’s bodily space as Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out. Wages are an effect of production, and not the sole determiner of material health.

The irony of Millman’s critique is that progressives are, in fact, for low wages whether they realize it or not. The Left has built itself into a political ideology that claims empathy and compassion as a chief motive. This translates to bureaucratically administered work programs that attempt to push wages upward with the barrel of a gun. The outcome is some with more income, and some with less. The state is not a benevolent deliver of prosperity, but an aggressive force, transplanting the stolen wealth of others. It’s policies are self-defeating. Any effort to lift wages above market level will cause the less-skilled to remain unemployed. And measures that employ government force to restrict immigration are a violation of the freedom of movement. If Noah Millman’s goal is for a richer, more prosperous America, his concern for high wages should be dedicated to encouraging policies that remove barriers to production.

In the realm of economic nonsense, the proposal for a higher minimum wages could be worse. Thankfully TAC is not home to France’s socialist moron (do I repeat myself?) of a President, Francois Hollande, calling for a mammoth Eurozone government or Hugo Chavez’s inept successor blaming toilet paper shortages on political enemies. But ignorance can breed with itself if left unchecked. I suggest Millman, and his colleagues, revisit basic supply and demand curve analysis and learn why appeals to human dignity fail to squelch overarching truth.

James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. Send him mail

Who is Mark Carney?

Mark Carney: Bank of Canada governor, soon-to-be Bank of England governor. He was born in the Northwest Territories 48 years ago. He graduated from the University of Alberta in Edmonton before studying economics at Harvard and getting his master’s and doctorate from Oxford. He spent 13 years with Goldman Sachs in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto. He then worked for the Department of Finance under both the Liberal and Conservative governments. He joined the Bank of Canada as a deputy governor before moving on into the top position. This was in 2007, just in time for the bursting of US housing bubble. Like every other central banker in the wake of the crisis, Mark Carney lowered interest rates and helped governments bail out large institutions.

What makes Carney unique is that he bumped up rates by a percent in 2010. Hardly a radical reversal, but it is something the US Federal Reserve has yet to accomplish. Carney got away with it because, at the time, Canadians were not as heavily indebted. The “boom” was still in its infancy. Carney still threatens to raise interest rates, but nobody believes him. All he does is give verbal warnings to Canadians that “taking advantage” of low rates is a bad idea. Despite all those educational institutions under his belt, Mark Carney does not understand human action.

Now he is bailing himself out from Canada’s certain crash and heading across the pond to lead the Bank of England. An already depressed economy, Britain won’t be any better under Carney’s rule alas he dismantles the Bank or at the very least raises interest rates to astronomical levels. Carney won’t do either of those things though because Mark Carney is a Keynesian. That is, the work of John Maynard Keynes influence his decision-making in macroeconomic analysis. This ideological view of society and its economic structure is one where no capital structure exists. Absurd given that nearly all consumer goods need some kind of input of capital stock. Keynesians also have a peculiar view on scarcity – a view that makes no economic sense whatsoever.

Economics

The public tend to have an unfavourable view of economics and economists – and for good reason. “Economics” is as dismal as it sounds; making economic sense is a whole other ball game. For Mark Carney, “economics” resembles something like physics and history. Although Carney would probably concede to the notion that an economy needs entrepreneurs and capital accumulation, his ideology assumes inherent failures in this process that must be corrected by state intervention. In actuality, it is state intervention that inhibits entrepreneurship, savings and investment. Therefore the Bank of Canada publishes nonsense. Their CPI indexes and growth estimates are results of computer models that produce the results they expect. Lately, this method has been failing as economies stagnate where the BoC’s arithmetic predicts growth.

Mark Carney’s economic methodology mimics the “hard” sciences like physics and chemistry. But economics is not a mathematical discipline; it involves agents who have free-will. Making economic sense requires understanding praxeology. Praxeology is the scientific study of human action. It is empirical but not in the sense of quantitative data. Praxeology begins with what we know is true and broadens its horizon through deductive reasoning. Instead of making a hypothesis of what we don’t know and then using empirical testing to validate the hypothesis, praxeology begins with what we do know – such as individuals act on purpose and value is subjective – to build logical constructs. The axioms – and the deductive reasoning built from them – are not trying to “prove” a hypothesis. They are true because of human language and the semiotic sign-systems we use to communicate and validate what’s real. Therefore the logical constructs in praxeological economics don’t need empirical testing since they can be traced to their irrefutable origin.

The Austrian tradition studies economics as understood through praxeology. This method has a long history, starting with the Late Scholastics and revived later by Austrians such as Carl Menger, Eugen Böhm-Bawerk and Ludwig von Mises. It survived the 20th century by a small group of Americans before exploding worldwide via the internet. With this school comes a deeper understanding of how we know. Human perception is a filter of information – five senses experiencing infinite possibilities. Language is crucial for understanding ideas. When individuals communicate we are quickly guessing and making decisions. Guessing if the words correspond to an objective reality and whether to choose those words. The process happens so fast that most of us are unaware of it; we do it instinctively.

Generations of state education have perverted the language to a degree that knowledge from logic is questionable, open to interpretation or deemed utterly unscientific. Bureaucratic schooling demotes common sense to the lowest common denominator. Mark Carney is a product of this conditioning but with a more intellectually rigorous indoctrination from Harvard and Oxford. It’s quite possible that he truly believes in what he’s doing.

Austrian Capital Theory

The Austrian School of Economics could in some cases also be called capital-based macroeconomics. Building from the irrefutable axioms that individuals act, value is subjective and the assumption that leisure is valuable good – the Austrians can build an entire framework on the structure of production and interest rates. The most clearest example I’ve ever come across is from Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy & State. Particularly Figure 41:

This figure is showing an “evenly-rotating economy,” a logical construct where certain things are assumed as to make economic principles more clear. In this economy, Mark Carney would experience reality as if every day were the same as the last. Risk, opportunity and uncertainty cease to exist. People still act – there is interest income, income to land and labour and consumer expenditure. But it is a closed system; everything behaves like clockwork.

On the right-hand side of the figure there are numbers ascending 1-6 starting with C. C is consumption, above it is the first-stage of production, then the second, third, etc. etc. Whereas C may be a nicely cooked t-bone steak, the stages of production are the process in which a cow becomes a steak on your plate. The cow is at the top, 19 ounces of gold to land and labour.

At each stage of production, a capitalist is purchasing capital goods (the shaded blocks) to be transformed by land and labour (the white blocks with numbers 8, 13, 12, 16, 15). For example, at the 1^st stage of production a capitalist is purchasing t-bone steaks for 80 ounces, using 15 ounces worth of land and labour to cook it and collecting 5 ounces in interest. 80 + 15 + 5 = 100 ounces, which is what consumers spend on the product. If we trace the t-bone steak back to its nature-given resource we find cows. The capitalist at the fifth stage of production buys a cow for 20 ounces, earns 1 ounce in interest by investing in the 8 ounces (land and labour) required to butcher the cow and sell it to the next capitalist for 30 ounces. At each stage of production, value is added to the goods. This value is determined by the consumers willing to spend 100 ounces on cooked t-bone steak each period.

In Man, Economy & State, Murray Rothbard constructs sound economics step-by-step. Prices, he shows, are determined by individual valuations. This process is evident in this construct which has features to it that are not accidental. 83 ounces to land and labour and 17 ounces in interest equal the 100 ounces on consumer expenditure. While in the real world of uncertainty these price ratios would be constantly changing – the reality of human action keeps the economy heading in the direction of this stationary economy. However the evenly-rotating economy will never arrive due to people’s ever-changing valuations and actions.

Keynesian Logic

Mark Carney’s low interest rates are messing up the production structure. If the Bank of Canada analysed Figure 41, they’d conclude that GDP every period is 100 ounces and driven completely by consumer spending. If the economy were in a slump, the BoC would report that GDP is 100% consumer spending therefore we need consumers to drive us out of recession. But how do they get that GDP figure? By comparing consumption to net investment, where Y= 100 ounces, Y=C+I+G+(X – M).

In this economy, the Keynesian framework would tell central bankers that there’s no investment and that everything is driven purely by consumption. But that’s not true. Consumption is 100 ounces each period, but 318 ounces are being invested. There are 418 ounces spent each period, only 100 are directed to consumption.

Keynesians, if they are intellectually honest, must take this absurdity further. It takes six stages of production to get to this consumer good, but Keynesians would say everybody should consume as much as they can and that will grow the economy. But if all those capitalists at those various stages said “okay, let’s consume more,” and they went to buy t-bone steaks instead of reinvesting, that would a) push up the price of t-bone steaks, and b) create a shortage of t-bone steaks since the capitalists didn’t bother replenishing their capital stocks.

A Keynesian may argue, “but this is good; higher prices entice producers. Bigger, final demand.” But this is nonsensical. There aren’t more goods to go around just because people are spending more. There can only exist what’s actually been produced. If more buyers enter the market and push up the price, we won’t have more goods, just higher prices.

But won’t that stimulate production? No, it can’t because the capitalists invested less in production and more in consumption. There is no way around the physical reality of scarcity. The Keynesian solution is to dilapidate the capital structure by diverting resources out of gross investment and into consumption. Sometimes people change their preferences and consume more in the present and less in the future. This naturally changes interest rates and businesses adjust accordingly. When Mark Carney manually lowers interest rates, he’s leading you to believe that we can get a free lunch.

Carney’s Fallacies Exposed

Neil Macdonald sat down to interview Mark Carney for his CBC report. Although the full interview has yet to be released, it’s evident from excerpts that Mark Carney did not like Macdonald’s reasoning.

Carney says, “There is a logic to some of your questioning which is that wouldn’t it be better if interest rates were really high? … You wanna talk unintended consequences, I’ll give you the intended consequences of that scenario which is let’s get interest rates back to historic levels, so that the money you saved and the return on that in your bank account is going to commence with what you expected.” In other words, let’s make it so your money isn’t losing its purchasing power. Carney continues, “and we have double unemployment in this country, hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes, their businesses because we have deflation.”

Mark Carney’s ideology is illogical: An economy with high unemployment can be fixed by printing money because mass unemployment and mass inflation never occur together. The 1970′s pretty much ended this Keynesian argument until the ’08 crisis revived the monster. The paradox of high unemployment with high inflation is corrected by changing how governments and banks measure inflation. No longer defined by the money supply, inflation in Canada is defined by the Consumer Price Index. A collection of prices of goods chosen by central bankers. Naturally, food and energy prices are excluded. The bias is blatant.

Mark Carney has no capital theory. The effect on savings in a low interest rate environment is to him, “a distributional implication.” Interest rates are an objective expression of individual time preferences – not tools to be wielded. It’s true, high rates will cause immediate recession if not depression, but this is temporary and necessary as the malinvestments liquidate and labour and capital find more productive uses. When savers are no longer punished, economic growth can occur.

In additional footage of his CBC interview, Mark Carney reveals that he really has no idea what he’s talking about. For example: The US Government issues bonds to finance their massive debt. Increasingly, only the Fed is willing to buy them. So the US Federal Reserve is the bond market. They might as well print money and mail a cheque to everyone. But according to Carney, this is a monetary stimulus where the Fed buys all the bonds to encourage investors to go into something risky. Without risk, says Carney, economies don’t grow. “You find risk in lending money to corporates or buying their shares,” he says, “or… by investing in another country.” He doesn’t elaborate much further, simply stating that, “that’s how economies grow and that’s the process by which central banks are trying to restart real growth in the economy.”

The financial crisis, according to Carney, was not a result of a government and central banking interventions. Carney thinks that money – “created in the private sector” – collapsed. By creating new money central banks are merely “leaning into” this collapse of money that threatened a repeat of the Great Depression. When Macdonald asks about central banks causing asset bubbles through quantitative easing, Carney answers in the affirmative. He says, “those are intended consequences, not unintended consequences.”

Conclusion

Mark Carney has no scientific backing to justify his actions. He is in a position that is dangerous and should not exist in a free society. Money is a commodity; not magic wand created by state decree. Is there an exit strategy for the Bank of Canada? What is Mark Carney’s plan to get England out of depression? It looks as if he isn’t too worried. Carney believes that everything depends on how governments act. “People can elect governments that do what they want,” says Carney. Funny, coming from the head of an institution that is supposed to remain independent of government influence.

Caleb McMillan is an autodidact and blogger living in Canmore, Alberta. He blogs at TANSTAAFL CANADA!

Television’s favorite bumbling anti-hero Homer Simpson once described public transportation as being reserved strictly for “losers.” I used to share his sentiment. But working in what James Pinkerton calls “Powercity” with a subway stop outside my Virginian apartment, it’s much more cost effective to bear the nearly hour-long commute then sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic. So for five days a week, I do my best to grasp onto what little sanity is retained by venturing into the soulless pit known as Washington D.C. The journey is made unnecessarily worse due to the brutish and discourteous behavior of fellow travelers. In response to the continual abuse, I will offer up some advice on how to conduct oneself in crowded, public areas. Admittedly, I have no formal knowledge in this subject outside of anecdotal experience and my own understanding of praxeology.

First, it must be clarified that I fully understand the pitfalls of state property, and thus all the arguments to be rid of it. Transportation with the word “public” in front of it unquestionably invites abuse. As far back as Aristotle, private property was recognized as the greatest coordinator of efficiency through limiting waste. And in most instances, public transit acts more as pocket-filler for crony capitalists than a genuine social good. However, since government-owned and operated transportation exists, it shall be dealt with.

The thing to remember is the Washington D.C. metropolitan area stands out from other sprawling public transport cities. It is a rathole teeming with diseases such as sociopathy, uncurled jealously, and the unrelenting desire to oversee the lives of millions. Business, for the most part, is conducted on a popularity contest basis. And yet the loathsome bunch who operate the behemoth machinery of the federal government are not at all unpleasant when removed from the habitat of legalized aggression. Indeed, the state bureaucrat is an interesting creature. While sulking from place to place, they act surprisingly innocuous. Given that most are members of the greatest criminal gang on the face of the Earth, I imagine they justify their monotonous day jobs with mental somersaults over the efficacy of state-sanctioned murder, theft, and oppression.

Even so, the typical government employee will not hesitate to resort to animal instincts if it means arriving at their destination a few minutes earlier. This means crowding into trains at full capacity, denying any and all empty breathing room. Like a herd of cattle, they are strangely comfortable with having their bodies closely packed together. Inevitably, one will shout for others to make room. The nuisance will be one of three things: overweight, elderly, or naturally loud-mouthed.

Natural law theory, which no public employee has familiarity with, is based on humanity’s unique attributes to determine what actions are conducive to pursuing the good while promoting overall flourishment. With this in mind, it is almost subhuman the way others behave on the metro. Man was not meant to have his face hard-pressed against another’s for the sake of convenience. The very act is illogical. To voluntarily submit yourself and others to congested conditions may not be premeditated aggression but it’s degrading for all involved.

Next, it should go without saying that talking on the phone in a crowded, confined space is universally taboo. Unless you are a major Wall Street Trader (and thus implicating yourself for the non-crime of insider trading) or a high-ranking military official with the authority of war declaration, your conversation is an impediment to relaxing silence. Still, middle-aged folks refuse to learn this lesson, as they yammer away to their spouse on the necessity of the family minivan being parked curbside so as to avoid the terrifying outdoors upon departure. Worse are those who keep the ringer on their cell phones at the loudest setting; like an irritant time bomb ready to explode.

The same critique applies to the endless chatter of work environments. In the rush hour traffic, there never fails to be two or more co-workers who find it necessary to hold boisterous conversations about their respective occupations. Usually this will entail a mix of complaining and grandstanding, directed primarily toward gathering peer approval. When government workers engage in sharing war stories, the annoyance metric is multiplied tenfold. Talk of wooing lobbyists with pathetic flattery or authoring some inane piece of legislation is enough to make any decent man struggle to maintain a tight composure. These episodes are made worse by the loudness in tone – an element necessary to be bothersome to begin with. Children need to be reprimanded to use their “inside” voices. Adults should not have to.

Possibly the worst offense in mass transit conduct occurs when a passenger decides to sit on the outside of a seat meant for two persons, thereby denying everyone the chance to avoid standing. There is absolutely no excuse for this, other than the brazen narcissism that accompanies an empty sense of accomplishment from government work. Colleagues of mine claim to have called attention to this rude behavior by demanding to sit in the abandoned space. I have never found a need to be so brash. The man or woman who consciously chooses to close off a perfectly good sitting area will receive a justful amount of stares and contempt. Disdain may not have a physical presence, but it still can be observed.

Thomas Hobbes famously depicted ungoverned humanity as a pack of violent savages who would rip each other limb from limb if it were not for the state. This characterization has been utilized by collectivists for centuries to justify their stranglehold over the populace. But if you observe people going about their everyday business, they are relatively benign. In the great struggle for material security, energy is invested more in productive efforts than aimlessly harming others. So affronts to living the good life are done in a more subtle manner as opposed to explicity. The government provides the unscrupulous enough of an outlet to act out their antisocial urges. At the same time, these officials who employ the machinations of the state do not, in a sense, carry their destructive work home with them.

Libertarianism finds its basis in the principle of non-aggression. As a political philosophy, it says nothing about manners or how to behave among others. Being the most civilized of all ideologies, refined social conduct would appear to go hand and hand with the moral framework of property rights. The harmony created by the voluntary division of labor requires, at the very least, a mannerly comport to be most effective. If the statist busybodies in D.C. could only learn these lessons, I would not look forward to my commute like I look forward to visiting the dentist.

James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. Send him mail

The most disturbing of all suggested anti-violence policies, however, has been the call by some to reinstate involuntary hospitalization for the mentally ill. Among the loudest of the voices endorsing such a policy is that of Ann Coulter, an author whom I respect greatly and with whom I frequently agree. However, when it comes to this subject, she could not be more wrong. One wonders if, like the NRA, her zeal to protect Second Amendment rights has clouded her judgment on the issue of involuntary commitment.

Let’s be clear on what we are talking about here: involuntary commitment laws allow the state to imprison people who have committed no crime, done nothing violent, and harmed no one, potentially for the rest of their lives, all because a man with a psychiatry license has declared them to be dangerous. How can anyone who values freedom from a tyrannical state, as conservatives claim they do, support such a ghastly and unjust system?

The great libertarian psychologist Thomas Szasz spoke out loudly against involuntary commitment laws for half a century, and in the end was partially responsible for seeing them abolished in 1975. Szasz pointed out that mental illness manifests no physical cause. You cannot diagnose clinical depression or bipolar disorder by examining the brain for defects, as you could with a tumor or lesion. Mental illness, in contrast to physical illness, is entirely defined by behavior that society considers aberrant. It must be remembered, however, that these standards change over time, and what was once considered a mental illness is now seen as acceptable variation in personality. Today, we would be horrified if people were being locked up for the “mental illness” of homosexuality, but it happened, the case of Oscar Wilde being the most notorious example. Few people now recall that there was once a mental disorder known as “drapetomania,” which manifested itself in slaves attempting to run away from their masters. Political dissent has also been classified as a mental illness at various times in history. Is this the kind of world we want to return to?

Today, on the other hand, psychiatry recognizes Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a condition which in less enlightened times would have probably been viewed as a rather predictable consequence of locking rambunctious boys in  dim, windowless rooms for six hours a day and expecting them to sit still and do math. Addiction to alcohol and other substances, once attributed to a lack of willpower or self-discipline, is now a disease.

Given the fungible and transient nature of mental illness, the potential for abuse is astounding. The diagnostics manual for psychiatrists, the DSM-5, has been criticized as being scientifically unsound, and diagnoses of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder have skyrocketed in the last twenty years, leading to concerns of overdiagnosis.

A 2010 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration concluded that as many as one in five Americans suffers from a mental illness. Under involuntary commitment laws, every one of these roughly 60 million people could present a potential case for imprisonment merely for seeming dangerous, having committed no crime whatever.

In 1956, science fiction legend Philip K. Dick wrote “The Minority Report,” a prophetic story in which the power to see the future enabled police to arrest, convict and imprison people who had not yet violated any law-but who were predicted to do so. More familiar now due its excellent screen adaptation starring Tom Cruise, the key point of the story is the moral dilemma it raises over the rights of the accused. In our society, however, there is no such dilemma, or at least there shouldn’t be. We cannot see the future, we can only speculate. We can guess that a schizophrenic may pose a danger to himself and others, but we can never be sure. It is unequivocally wrong to rob someone of their liberty based solely on speculation about what they might do.

Republicans should think long and hard about the lengths they are willing to go in their quest to protect gun rights(rights which I fully support, by the way) lest, in their haste, they end up avoiding one set of tyrannous regulations only to fall victim to another.

Logan Albright is a writer and economist in Washington, DC.

Cocaine is manufactured from the coca leaf. This plant cannot be grown in a Rocky Mountain climate. Most, if not all, cocaine in Canmore is imported, brought in from somewhere in the United States. Marijuana, on the other hand, can be grown in Canmore however much of it seems to come from Nelson, British Columbia. So perhaps it is more “economical” for the RCMP to use their resources to bust local marijuana production. However this negates the fact that cocaine is much worse than marijuana. Whereas cocaine can be extremely dangerous, marijuana can be used as a medicine. Whereas cocaine is produced by violent cartels, the entrepreneurial potential in marijuana and hemp production is endless.

Caleb McMillan is an autodidact and blogger living in Canmore, Alberta. He blogs at TANSTAAFL CANADA!

The basic theory of the piece is that the Federal Reserve’s out of control printing is massive, nearly unprecedented, (both correct) and working to help the economy (wildly, childishly incorrect.) TP asks, “The question is straightforward: When the economy is in a deep slump, and the government makes things worse by cutting spending, how much can monetary policy do to help?”

Loaded for bear right out of the gate. First, and most important to this central question: THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS NOT CUT SPENDING. AT ALL. NOT EVEN ONE PENNY. Spending in 2013 will outpace spending 2012, just as it did in 2011, and 2010, ad infinitum. There is simply no getting around this fact. Spending has not been cut. And that doesn’t bode well for a piece based entirely on a faulty premise.

So we follow TP down a rabbit hole to the second part of their question: how much can “monetary policy” do to help? It’s important, see: “The answer could reshape the way we argue about economic policy, with profound implications for progressives’ economic priorities — and big opportunities, if they can seize them.” Yes, if economic law can be proven “beatable,” then all that nasty reality will stop getting in the way of “progressive economic priorities.”

And so the refresher course begins. “First, a quick refresher. Just like blood carries nutrients to the cells of the body, enabling them to function, the flow of money though an economy enables people to keep buying, selling, and earning incomes.”

No. Double no. A thousand-times no. Money doesn’t “flow” through an economy. It is the medium by which individuals exchange. It does not move on its own. Money does not enable people to “keep buying, selling, and earning incomes.” It does not magically appear (wait! Ignore the Fed for a moment) and enable people to buy, sell, or earn an income. Individuals produce in order to exchange with others. They could, and have, do this without money. Money simply alleviates the double-coincidence of wants problem.

“Keeping the supply of money in line with the economy’s changing needs is the job of the Federal Reserve, and normally it does so by adjusting interest rates. Raising them sucks money out of the economy and reins in inflation. Cutting them pumps money into the economy, boosting wages and job growth.”

First, the so-called job of the Federal Reserve is to keep inflation low and employment high. (This is a so-called job because attempting to do so by adjusting the supply of money is a fool’s errand that was proven empirically false during Stagflation.) And what the hell is “keeping the supply of money in line with the economy’s changing needs?” The economy is not a tangible, physical entity. It is the summation of the actions of individuals. It is not a pet dog that needs to be fed and let outside. It doesn’t have anything, let alone needs. And what exactly is the right supply for which needs? We are left to ponder this question.

True, raising interest rates tends to tamp down on inflation – especially inflation properly defined, that is the supply of money. But does cutting interest rates really boost wages and job growth? Well, that depends. It does, or at least can, in the industries receiving the freshly-printed dough. But whether or not these boosted wages and job growth are, as the progressives are wont to say, sustainable, is another matter altogether. And regardless of the cooked CPI inflation numbers, there is not a person in America who is not feeling the pinch of inflation. Groceries, energy, etc. have been rising for, well, forever (Conveniently, these “volatile” figures are not taken into account in the CPI.)

“And most of the time, most economists agree this is the primary tool for guiding the economy out of its periodic slumps.” How many times are we going to hear about the majority of economists, who have been disastrously wrong about absolutely everything for decades?

TP then points out the sad GDP growth numbers for 2013. These numbers themselves are a total fabrication. They are nearly meaningless since GDP counts government spending as “growth.” Realistically, the +2.5% figure given for the first quarter of 2013 could mean a contracting economy, since government spending has skyrocketed and private growth is likely stagnant.

“This despite multiple rounds of “quantitative easing,” an attempt by the Fed to get around the zero lower bound by purchasing huge numbers of financial instruments, thus injecting money into the economy.”

This new money isn’t just going. Contra Helicopter Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Milton Friedman,the money is going to specific places, and specific people. Usually for a specific reason; nothing more complicated than plain old graft. Where the money goes affects the structure of production, and does so over time. When the Fed buys $85 billion worth of anything, the money first goes to the seller. Then the seller uses the money for another purpose, and so on. The money isn’t magically spread evenly throughout the economy. Such a construction is absurd.

TP then makes the argument that this “accommodative” monetary policy is keeping a floor under economic growth. Again, this argument falls flat on its face, for the reasons mentioned above and because of time. The policy of wild prime-pumping got us in this mess in the first place. The prime-pumping from the Fed has real effects. It creates real illusions throughout the sectors that generally receive the new money first. What should come to mind is the housing bubble. Of course, the writers at TP blame the 2007 crisis, mislabeled as the 2008 crisis, on a mysterious deregulated, free market that didn’t exist then and doesn’t exist now. The housing bubble was created by the accommodative policy in the wake of the Dot-Com Crash – the very same policies being touted by TP as the solution to today’s problems. Who could forget Paul Krugman’s call for a housing bubble to replace the burst dot-com bubble? (This point deserves an aside: Keynesians aren’t stupid. As economist Bill Anderson points out, they are not economists but rather political operatives.Krugman knew and knows full well what Fed pumping does, as is proved by his statement.)

The TP solution of growing our way out of the economic slump will not happen when the Fed is printing like they stole the press and the government is wildly increasing spending. All growth, just like all spending, is not alike. The clarion call for “demand” is utterly meaningless in the context used. The economy does not grow if the Fed’s money goes to an airplane manufacturer that has no customers for its new planes. Demand is what individuals want and can buy. The economy does not grow if the government is spending money to watch prawns on crack cocaine. The economy grows when production is increasing for the purpose of satisfying actual demand from real people.

Anyone concerned about the human race and the fates of real people should be extremely concerned that the “progressives” are taking a political interest in pushing for even more of the monetary crankism that has afflicted the American economy for decades. If there’s one thing about “progressives,” it’s that they steadfastly refuse to let economic law, facts, history, or any other silly little realities get in the way of total State domination over our lives.

Derek is a writer in Virginia, following the Rothbardian ethic and living by the Misesian motto, Tu Ne Cede Malis.

The greatest peddler of the “laissez faire” myth are often university professors, decrying the immorality of profit-seeking while assigning their own textbooks to the student body. In one of the most poorly written, unthought out pieces of economic diagnosis I have ever had the displeasure of reading, DePaul University professor Paul Buchheit gripes at Alternet.com that “raw, unregulated capitalism” is “acting like a cancer” on America. And the guy is serious; absolutely sincere. Modern liberal tirades that put free markets through the wood chipper are, on occasion, backed by criticism of seemingly untainted sectors of the economy. The best of these handily ignore the influence of government. While incorrect in diagnosis, at least the reasoning of many capitalism-skeptics can be followed and made to seem plausible once state interference is removed from the equation. But Buchheit doesn’t even attempt to do that. He simply issues a laundry list of complaints, and proceeds to attribute unfettered enterprise to those failings. Calling himself a professor of “economic inequality” at DePaul University should have rung the alarm in my head as to the simpleton nature of his critique. I read on anyway, only to be infuriated at the stretched-beyond-reason conclusions.

Buchheit’s first target is the common villain of subtly Marxist left-wingism: capital investment. As he writes, the income earned through speculation and finance is somehow detrimental to “vital programs” such as food stamps. The vast profits earned in the investment field are made to appear evil when compared to the paltry sum spent on welfare subsistence (neverminding the fact that the food stamps program is an enormous subsidy to large agricultural conglomerates).

This characterization should strike the economic reader as atrociously misguided if Buchheit’s objective is a wealthier society, and not just an excuse to satisfy a fetish for thievery. The delaying of consumption, also known as investment, is the lifespring through which all economic progress flourishes. If humanity was composed entirely of hedonistic animals devouring everything around it, there would be no resources to devote to future purpose. The division of labor would collapse, as would the market of intermediate goods which employs millions. It is only the act of production that allows for consumption. Claiming otherwise is analogous to putting the cart in front of the horse. And as economist Robert Higgs has shown, today’s economic malaise persists in due part to real private fixed investment lagging behind aggregate consumption recovery. The ensuing result has been tepid growth and employment of labor. If Buchheit can’t recognize the social good brought about by high level investment, it should not be a surprise the rest of his commentary comes off as blind takedown of an imaginary enemy.

Our greed-fighting author proceeds his capitalism exposition by highlighting the plight of college graduates. He argues that not only has capitalism left only minimum wage jobs for former collegians, but it has also contributed to the incredible hike in tuition cost. Would Dr. Buchheit be happier if these graduates were not working at all? His tirade implies that free markets are the culprit behind the dismal employment picture of college graduates. He gives no explanation why except a greater number of degree holders are staffing lower paying jobs. Having a PhD in computer science, it’s doubtful Buchheit is versed in the practice of logic as he easily falls prey to the post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy. Choosing to attend university with a useless major like art appreciation or gender studies is capitalist choice. Those who graduate with little prospects have no one to blame but their gullible belief in the sanctity of higher education. Setting that aside, Buchheit pays no mind to the government’s encouragement of higher education through subsidized loans.

Next, Buchheit brings in the novelty device which succeeds in eliciting both inordinate amounts of hatred and sympathy: children. He blames the declining rate of health in youngsters precisely on American capitalism, and nothing else. The truth that only private investment could have funded the advent of vaccines and better medical technology just happens to go without acknowledgement. Buchheit also fails to take note of the different methods in which the infant mortality rate is calculated in the United States when compared to other countries. Because low birth weight infants are not accounted for in the mortality rates of countries such as Canada or Germany, the land of Uncle Sam appears to harbor a murderous resentment for newborns. Funny how things work out when your goal is playing arson to a field of strawmen.

Buchheit’s next victim are tax loopholes which deprive the money grubbers in Washington of much needed revenue. Here, the fussy professor offers what I can only describe as the stupidest comment ever penned by someone attempting to make an economic argument: “Loopholes and exemptions cost the public about a trillion dollars a year, and underreported income costs another $450 billion.” How can any functioning human brain come up with that sentence? What the statement implies is that tax dollars are not, in actuality, taken from the public. Or that they are, but somehow the act of state plunder adds to society’s stock of wealth. Just as the law “production must precede consumption” is true in every circumstance, so it is that government can only take from the private citizen. The state is a great redistributive force – passing along the stolen goods to those with political clout.

To conclude, the intellectually exhausted Buchheit bemoans the corruption of democracy at the hand of unfettered free markets. In his words, the pitiful voters are “useless” in comparison to the “greedy mass of nutrient-taking super-rich” who spend their day finding new ways to press their boot harder upon the low-class miserables. “Too much money in elections” is the last rallying cry of progressives who view corporations as shadowy manifestations of pure evil. But as George Will always points out, the amount of actual dough used in campaigns is a relatively paltry sum compared to economy-wide spending. In 2012, $6.3 billion dollars in total was spent on the cycle of political beauty pageantry. In comparison, $2.4 billion was spent on Halloween candy in the month of October. Regardless of the surprisingly low amount of money put to electing patsies, bribing public officials does not fall within the realm of the free market. Cash is transacted sure, but the marketplace if based on volunteerism – not the funding of potential compulsion on the innocent. Capitalism has as much to do with the political system as President “maim women and children” Obama has to do with peace, transparency and impartiality.

After a temper tantrum of an argument filled solely with complaints of unfairness a teenage girl might formulate, Buchheit posits a remedy of localism combined with solar panels is the magic bullet to kill the beast of laissez faire. But as made clear at the beginning of this rebuttal, there is no free enterprise dragon to slay. Buchheit is Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

I do not state this lightly: Buchheit’s post was one of the most stupid, inane and illogical pieces ever written on modern political economy. Not only should Alternet.com be apologetic for publishing the piece, DePaul University should be embarrassed to even have this man as an instructor to students. God only knows what garbage the graduates of Dr. Buchheit have instilled in their head. Yes, this is an ad hominem attack, but if there is anything more deserving of one, it’s the author of such an intellectually grotesque piece of writing that fails at deserving to be called an “article.”

Respect is reserved for serious thinkers who, rightly or wrongly, make their case in a coherent manner. This was not a respectable argument by a respectable writer. It was the juvenile ramblings of a leftist who reads way too much of Arianna Huffington’s online rag. Murray Rothbard once quipped that it is “no crime to be ignorant of economics” but it is “totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” Dr. Bucheit might fancy himself a serious educator of the “dismal science” but his knowledgeable makeup is composed entirely of progressive sound bites, swallowed and regurgitated much like a robin’s supper for her offspring.

James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. Send him mail

Reprinted from NoFrakkingConsensus.com

It turns out there’s an entire magazine aimed at sucking the joy out of parenthood. It’s called Green Child.

Apparently, we aren’t smart enough to teach kids to respect Mother Earth all on our own. We need a preachy periodical to show us the way. A periodical whose mission is to help us “raise a child the way nature intended.”

I find that statement astonishing. Allow me to explain.

Shortly after it appeared back in 1980, I read a book titled The Sceptical Feminist. It left an indelible imprint on my thinking.

For thousands of years, women were considered intellectually inferior to men. Our great-grandmothers were told that nature was responsible for this state of affairs, and that fighting for property or voting rights was therefore unnatural.

Shamefully, many feminists now employ similarly specious reasoning. For example, they believe women should get custody of the kids when a marriage breaks down because nature made the mother-child bond more intense than the father-child bond.

Rigorous thinking shining from every page, The Sceptical Feminist eviscerates this sort of shoddy analysis. In Radcliffe Richards’ view, equating what’s “natural” with virtue amounts to a cheap debating trick.

Chapter 2 is titled The Proper Place of Nature. Several pages in, Section 5 is headed: An Analysis of the Natural. Like a splash of cold water, it asks:

why should it be considered good to act naturally? The natural world contains quite as much evil as good.

Surely anyone who has spent an afternoon watching the Nature Channel has figured this out. Wild animals terrorize their prey before tearing it to pieces. Nature is vicious, cruel, heartless.

It is civilized human beings who believe that the weak, the sick, and the old deserve protection. Nature destroys those beings first. She cares not whether we suffer, whether we live or perish.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Radcliffe Richards challenges the “what nature intended” promoters to turn their backs on modern medicine. Dying in childbirth is perfectly natural. So is suffering brain damage due to infections such as syphilis.

In her words:

This sort of arguing from the natural is an unmitigated menace. If the people who use [these] arguments come to the right conclusions, it is entirely by accident and for the wrong reasons.

Amen to that.

Today is Mother’s Day here in Canada. A female acquaintance has long argued that green initiatives aimed at altering people’s everyday behaviour are another manifestation of busybodies using maternal guilt to push their own agendas.

Breast milk rather than formula. Cloth diapers rather than disposable ones. Homemade baby food rather than the sort that comes in jars. Packaging your child’s school lunch in a washable plastic container rather than a disposal sandwich bag.

Far too many decisions that should be matters of personal choice have become emotionally-charged opportunities for strangers to boss parents around. My friend is especially resentful of people whose “green solutions” invariably  increase the amount of time the average mother spends on mind-numblingly boring tasks.

There’s a growing mountain of evidence, for example, that curbside, consumer recycling is close to pointless. In some respects, it’s actually worse for the environment. But every week millions of mothers sort (and, in the case of empty cans and jars, wash) their family’s refuse.

As if they had nothing better to do with that most non-renewable resource of all – their limited time on this Earth.

Donna Laframboise is a Canadian feminist, journalist, writer, and photographer. She holds a degree in women’s studies, and her writing has often supported organizations such as fathers’ rights groups.

As far as central bankers go, Mark Carney is a rock star. His cult of personality in the mainstream media influence how people see him. Very few actually look what he specifically did during the 2008 financial crisis. Most journalists focus on him as if he was a public relations issue and skim over these facts: In the wake of the ’08 crisis, Carney’s BoC cut interest rates, supplied the banks with credit and – along with the federal government – facilitated an increase of the CMHC’s balance sheet. These actions ensured that Canada would one day face the same credit crisis and economic depression as the rest of the Western World.

This is where Stephen Poloz comes in. Mark Carney is too much of a celebrity to waste his time in Canada. He’ll head the Bank of England before (probably) moving on to global central bank issuing a global fiat currency. In the meantime when the Canadian credit bubble bursts the media zeitgeist will probably be along the lines of: “oh why, oh why, did we let Mark Carney go? We should have begged him to stay!”

But let’s not forget the Harper Government. Poloz was chosen by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Export Development Canada is a crony-capitalist organization that worked closely with the PMO in the auto bailouts. Critics of Harper will jump on this bandwagon pronto, but without realizing that Macklem wouldn’t have been the better choice.

Tiff Macklem was Carney’s right-hand man, a sturdy reliable fella that would steer Canada’s economy through the next crisis. So obviously he wasn’t going to get the job. The establishment need a boob and Poloz is their guy. Now perhaps I’ve arranged the argument to produce the results I expect. The mainstream media never attacked Carney and it’s possible they’ll never criticize Poloz. Poloz is the “partisan choice” as chosen by the Harper Government. So the bursting of the housing bubble will be Harper’s fault. And if Poloz is no Mark Carney, then this is also Harper’s fault. The mainstream media will never scrutinize the BoC until Canadians demand it.

And if Canadians demand it – Poloz will likely take the fall. It remains to be seen whether Poloz sees high commodity prices as detrimental to the Canadian economy and if a “strong” loonie is something that should be offset by “cheap” loonie. He’s expressed this view in the past, but given the government that appointed him, it’s uncertain how he’ll rule. Whatever his past or present views, it’s likely to result in more “monetary stimulus” and lower rates of interest. In other words, economic chaos.

Caleb McMillan is an autodidact and blogger living in Canmore, Alberta. He blogs at TANSTAAFL CANADA!

Reprinted from TheTruthAboutGuns.com

Update- The US Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance, Enforcement Division has requested Cody Wilson remove information for how to print the world’s first 3 dimensional gun – the Liberator. Wilson has complied. A colleague of mine mentioned this was just a private citizen cooperating with a government order. I replied that taxes are only technically requested. Should you not abide, you go behind bars. See singer/rapper Lauren Hill to see what happens when you disobey the government’s request.–Editor of Mises.ca

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of taking Cody Wilson, mastermind behind Defense Distributed and the Liberator firearm, out to dinner. Well, technically Robert took him out to dinner and I tagged along. But since Robert is otherwise occupied and can’t post at the moment, I get to write the story the way I want. Anyway, while we’ve already interviewed Cody Wilson about the nature of his work and his beliefs (we liked him before he was cool) it was nice to get an update on how he’s doing since he became one of the most feared and hated people to gun control advocates. And let me say that anyone who can make Chuck Schumer brown his pants is a friend in my book . . .

The first thing we wanted to know is if he’s worried about a possible stretch as a guest of the the federal government in one of their high security greybar hotels. Cody’s response: “I’m looking forward to it. It’ll give me time to catch up on my reading.”

As far as he’s concerned, the government might get him on any number of technicalities. Cody started listing the ways that Uncle Sam could justify putting him away, almost as if they were badges of honor — thumbing his nose at their attempts to control the proliferation of firearms. It fits well with the “crypto-anarchist” persona that he’s developed as his efforts with 3D printing have progressed.

Robert was concerned that Cody didn’t have a lawyer already on speed dial in the event of his arrest. We started spit-balling lawyers that might be interested in taking his case, and Cody wasn’t too impressed with any of them. Alan Gottleib was definitely a no-go. “Didn’t he support that Toomey-Manchin background check bill? No, f*** him.”

As the appetizers were being served we started talking about the gun itself, the Liberator, and its technical specifications. At the moment, the only working model is a smoothbore .380 caliber version that technically falls under the “Any Other Weapon” category of U.S. firearms law. Cody says there’s an alternate version available with rifling, but that the rifling would either not survive the first shot or the added pressure would split the barrel. He says he hasn’t tried yet, but based on his experience it won’t be effective. Translation: it won’t work with rifling.

We asked about shotgun shells, and apparently they’ve already tried — and failed. “There’s something about the rapidly expanding cartridge” that Cody says splits the barrel whenever they fire it. Either that, or the plastic wadding gets caught on the side of the barrel and obstructs it.

But the gun isn’t what the members of the mainstream media he’s talked to are most interested in discussing. They want to hear about the implications of the technology, and Cody says that’s exactly the way he wants it. “They all accept the premise,” he says, “that now that the gun is out there nothing can take it back. And that’s the way he wants it portrayed, as if it’s an unstoppable force that governments can’t control. That it has happened, and all there is to do now is watch the aftermath. Can’t stop the signal . . .

“I’ve talked to people who have walked into hacker spaces and seen a row of printers all printing Liberator parts,” Cody said as his roasted chicken dish was being placed in front of him. Hacker spaces are collaborative locations where exceedingly nerdy people get together, pool their money to buy equipment and space and experiment with technology, usually including 3D printers. Hacker spaces have popped up in cities across the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., London, Helsinki and Lisbon.

Cody says that there are even Liberators being printed in China right now, which is the reason that there’s a Simplified Chinese version of the “readme” (instruction) file in the download package. “I’m actually meeting a girl later tonight to translate it better.”

“The next big thing is getting a picture of one of these things printed out in another country,” Cody says. He says that he isn’t actively enticing people to break the law in other countries, but according to him a picture of a fully assembled Liberator in the middle of London isn’t far off. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a picture leaks out after he finishes his final exams this weekend.

As for his own future, Cody says that he’ll keep refining the design, but doesn’t want to stay in the limelight. Robert kept offering suggestions as to how to increase his profile and get more publicity for the project, but Cody says that he’s happy to melt back into the background once the furor dies down. But while the spotlight is still on him and his plastic fantastic, he seems to be having tons of fun debating the talking heads. Well, most of them. “I still have to decide if I want to go on Colbert,” he mentioned with some trepidation.

Nick Leghorn is a gun nerd living and working in San Antonio, Texas. In his free time, he’s a competition shooter (USPSA, 3-gun and NRA High Power), EMT-B and enjoys mixing statistics and science with firearms.

This is but one example of misguided interventionism hatched from the minds of Canada’s ruling class. It’s asinine to believe you can tax business owners to partially cover the cost of otherwise unemployable workers and expect to skirt the laws of economics. There is no wealth to be gained through the use of “a clenched fist,” to borrow a phrase from Leonard Reed. That aphorism has never stopped the dubious thought constructs of men longing to create a society equitable and prosperous for all. If anything, it has emboldened the sick, fantastical conception of a clay populace willing to be molded to fit nicely into egalitarian predilections.

The graveyard of victims wrought by public policy created on the behalf of victimized classes is filled with the unused talent of a new breed of martyrs. To add another casualty to the heap, I will also throw in simple decency as well. The attitude of self-styled antagonists of privilege is just plain awful. From screeching feminists to Ivory Tower anti-racists who have never been within one hundred feet of a minority individual, their pompous rhetoric of disdain for the underlings would be admirable if it were not guided by Utopian derangement.

Say what you will, but at least conspiracy theorists remain charming for their incessant yammering over a cryptic plot by globalists to take over the world. A cabal of bankers cozying up to the heads of nation states in smoked filled rooms makes for an intriguing, not to mention true, narrative. On the other hand, egalitarian interventionists are upfront and unembarrassed about their agenda, almost to the point of being pitiable. Their total lack of astonishment over the ire some have for objectives like racial quotas makes them even more of an annoyance.

Recently the Canadian Broadcast Company was accepting applications for the host of a new television show aimed at children. The catch was the applicant could be of any racial makeup barring the devil race: Caucasian. Shortly after, the stipulation of having any skin color – with the exception of morbid white – vanished down the memory hole. A spokesman for the network declared the advertisement was a mistake and it would be looked into more thoroughly. Chances of the incident being brought up again are the same as Karl Marx coming back from the afterlife and declaring all the dialectic materialism and talk of communism’s inevitability was a practical joke. The issue will be soon forgotten, and attention will be diverted back to another irrelevant cause for social justice like ensuring transgendered folks are allowed to attend a musical festival for women.

The progressive mindset is aflame with blatant contradictions; lambasting private persons for racial preference while cheering for government’s hiring quotas topping the list. Somehow it’s  neanderthalic to hang a “whites only” sign outside your business but perfectly acceptable, and high brow cosmopolitan, to do so as a state official. The only reasoning I can figure behind a scheme like government affirmative action is to make up for decades of prejudicial treatment. It’s similar to the same train of thought that told Harry Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in the name of peace and saving lives.

Naturally, state bureaucrats find it reasonable to matter-of-factly discriminate in hiring practices. Canada’s monopoly of force has been utilizing minority “targets” since 2003.  Even so, spokespeople for Ottawa agencies assert that no Canadian is prohibited from public sector jobs “based on race or ethnicity.” But how can this be if psychologically malignant administrators are purposefully seeking nonwhites to man help desks at the Department of Motor Vehicles? There is no acceptable retort other than these are, indeed, mutually exclusive goals. The quest for egalitarianism must involve the discrimination of persons. Forming a rainbow workforce means choosing every color from the bunch.

Conceding for a moment that the state is legitimate, the use of tax dollars to reward anything other than merit should strike a negative chord with the few in society who still possess a functioning inner compass for fairness.   Equal opportunity is not the same as special treatment, even if the latter is truly a product of good conviction. Thus far, the bureaucrats in Ottawa have done a miserable job at acclimating the workforce to reflect the demographic picture of Canada. Both the disabled and so-called “visible minorities” are underrepresented in the federal government when compared to overall population. No doubt the champions of the trampled want to replace entitled caucasians with workers of darker melanin. That is the likely culprit behind the “whites need not apply” mentality at the CBC.

The wish of the Canadian government – along with its kindred force monopolizers around the world – is to create a citizenry with beaming, multi-colored faces similar to the glint of green on newly wetted shrubbery. This vision requires the employment of guns and badges to carry forth the diktat of equality-for-all. Compassion through compulsion is the progressive creed. The logic of “the best man for the job” is cast aside as a stale euphemism for the white superiority of antiquity.

If state policy is going to require discrimination, the Canadian government should think it best to place someone like Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries in charge of hiring and placement. The recent public castigation over his comments on overweight women indicates a strong will to be prejudice, even in the face of bawling indignation. For admitting he wants only “beautiful” people wearing the Abercrombie label, an expected assemblage of steamed, and likely not-too-courteous to the eye, women declared Jeffries to be the anti-Christ and his store a haunt for the damned. One peeved commenter declared no “full-figured women” should be “judged by this man.” Forget gingerly political appointees trying so hard to not be offensive they end up insulting everyone – Canada needs a man like Jeffries to make tough calls like picking a gimp-legged aboriginal over an able-bodied white man. Regardless of his superficial appearance, Mr. Abercrombie has done more good for the world with his candid illiberality than sobbing defenders of the downtrodden who staff Ottawa’s many federal agencies. It’s just a shame he is white, and thus unhirable.

James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. Send him mail

Caleb McMillan is an autodidact and blogger living in Canmore, Alberta. He blogs at TANSTAAFL CANADA!