I’m not sure who Don Cooper is (should I? — I don’t subscribe to cable) but his message certainly does resonate with me. Though I’m in The Garden State, and he’s in The Peach State, we are people of like mind. They’re will be differences, of course, but I think we both have this aversion to coercion — or rather, in the government’s case, extortion. It’s interesting isn’t it that when the Mafia pulls this stuff it’s a crime — when the government does it it’s patriotism for the common good.
Ho, and don’t talk about eminent domain! Why not just call it droit de signeur and be done with it! Recently a neighboring town confiscated a family farm — after a long legal battle — that had been a working farm for over a century. Evidently a working farm is a “distressed property” when it’s encroached upon by suburban development. And the kicker — they condemned it for the purpose of preserving “open space”.
Evil and stupid — gotta love it.
Publish if you will, but don’t use my name as I am (justifiably) paranoid.
And another…
Hello Gary:
I found the article American fear interesting. A little more than a decade ago, I visited Russia. I went to the beautiful city of St. Petersburg. It was the first time I had really been in a different culture. I had read about some of the differences between Americans and Russians, but one of them seems so little until you think about it. Russians walk very close together. When I was walking with an attractive tour guide of the opposite gender I really liked that. Russians walk shoulder to shoulder with each other. When they speak, the person who speaks, standing shoulder to shoulder, has his mouth barely inches from the other person’s ears. They speak softly. The American on the other hand stands with a space between them and the other person. An American man on a date with his girlfriend will often stand further apart than two Russian friends simply walking to a store. This note is going somewhere, don’t worry. Well, I remember after being only with Russian s for two weeks, falling into the habit of speaking softly and rubbing shoulders with my tour guide. Then I heard these people speaking loudly. I hadn’t even paid attention to their speaking. I said to my tour guide, “those people are speaking so loud.” She replied, “They are speaking English, they must be British or American.” I listened and said, “They are Americans. She wondered how I knew. Of course, I knew even more. I had every reason to believe they were girls from the northern United States and not the deep south nor Canada. But then I realized they weren’t walking close to one another like Russians do.
What does all that say? We can say too much. One answer is that Russians take friendship very seriously. They take personal relationships very seriously. That must be admitted. But it also says that Americans take individual freedom very seriously. You see, even when we get married we feel a great need to respect that our spouses have something of an individual private life that they are entitled to. Sometimes that gets in the way of a marriage commitment, but often it allows a person the freedom to bloom. But another thing can be said. Americans have gotten used to being able to walk down the street with a swaggering individualism that did not worry about someone listening in. As important as Russians take personal relationships, very import ant I observed, they also had a history of living in a land with a government prone to listen in. I wonder if the loud American with the swagger in his steps that gives a large space to the person walking with him is an endangered cultural icon representing us Americans.
I enjoyed walking closely with the Russians I met when in St. Petersburg. I had gone alone and met people I met on the internet. It was an extraordinary and wonderful trip for a guy that usually is almost a complete hermit. But I’m glad that the loud-mouthed American that swaggers is able to do that because he has never thought that anyone was listening in. But now with each of us regarded as potential Muslim, right-wing and left-wing terrorists, we are being retrained to watch our mouths and words on the internet, to travel in a submissive manner, to make sure our lawns are mowed for strange people don’t mow their lawns and need to be pointed out to the authorities just in case. We say the terrorists didn’t win because everyone on the street has raised a flag and has “support our troops” stickers. But that is such a change so much unlike Americans who always liked to humorously point out the flaws in their national leaders. Patriotism used to be taken fo r granted, now it is questioned enough that the politicians are warning us about people who show too little love of their country. I did enjoy my visit to Russia, but I also enjoy the freedoms that made Americans as loud and boisterous and individualistic as they are. Freedom makes people imagine they have the space to do anything. Repression makes people look for someone whom they can stand next to and say softly what is really on their minds. I have to go now. Someone may be checking this email, do you know what I mean?”
Oh, do we ever know what you mean! Thanks for writing.
And in response to Gary North’s article on Milton Friedman we received this letter…
Gary,
Great informative and thought-provoking article. I did not know that it was Freidman who suggested some of these things. He certainly trusted government a lot more than they deserve to be trusted.
I would like your thoughts on what the government is doing to people who take it into their own hands to fix the problem of inflation. I refer specifically to the gentleman who started a business to provide an alternative to Federal Reserve Notes and American Clad metallic coin currency. He just got convicted of counterfeiting and will likely serve a very long time in prison besides the fact that the FBI confiscated all his silver coins which was a considerable amount in the 10′s of millions possibly 100′s of millions of dollars worth.
Milton Friedman suggested that a fiat currency with a “reasonable” increase in the money supply somewhere between 2 and 5% would be best.
Some gold bugs would point out that the creation of new money means the debasement of the money that already exists. The power to create new legal money amounts to legalized counterfeiting…and legalized siphoning (i.e. theft) of purchasing power.
But gold supplies increase each year too, by about 2% and as high as 5%. So why is it so bad when the central bank increases the money supply? What makes gold more honest than government’s legal tender?
A friend asked me the same question recently in an email…
I’m curious as to why Libertarians are so interested in gold as investment/currency… Is it because it has intrinsic value (though I’m confused as to what the intrinsic value would be, aside from it being a metal…)? Is “paper money” not valued because it is a creation of the State? Am having a debate with a co-worker about monetary policy and am curious.
Gold demands honesty and prevents the surreptitious theft in which governments tend to engage. In order to get more gold, one has to put in a little effort…take a little risk. There’s no theft there; just an exchange of value for value. The gold miner gets to “spend” the new gold he finds, but he had to come by it honestly…just as did the bakers, mechanics, builders, artists, teachers, etc who worked for their gold.
The central bank, however, merely pushes a button and—presto!—there is new money. It’s great work if you can get it. And it’s a power that tends to be abused.
Not one person in a thousand understands this anymore, at least not in the U.S. They assume that the power to create new money belongs in the hands of the Federal Reserve (if they even understand that the Fed creates new money at all).
They believe that rising prices are a natural outcome of economic growth. They figure that it’s okay that bread, milk, insurance, electricity and gas all get more expensive over time. After all, incomes rise just as quickly or even more quickly…right?
But now with everything getting so damned expensive…amidst stagnant and falling incomes…people are starting to wonder about that.
So many have lost their jobs and seen their income go to zero. Those lucky enough to still be employed have not seen raises in years…yet the food and energy they rely on to live continue to go up in price. What gives?
Meanwhile gold and silver are soaring. But supposed experts like John Melloy of CNBC’s Fast Money are calling gold a “rejection of the capitalist system” and “the world’s most respected Ponzi scheme.”
Good citizens are supposed to maintain their faith in the dollar and the dollar standard. They are to view the gold standard with suspicion. Those who propose a gold standard are to be met with scorn, mockery, consigned to the figurative loony bin.
Thank goodness no amount of scorn has ever bothered Congressman Ron Paul.
The last time the country was this close to the brink of currency collapse back in the late ’70s, Ron Paul assembled a Gold Bible in an effort to explain the history and necessity of the gold standard in the U.S. economy.
Of course, it was ignored by Congress then. But we’re back at the brink now. And this time it looks like we’re going over..
