TDV Week in Review March 10th, 2013

March 10, 2013 / Redmond W /

Hello from the belly of the beast,

A very dear friend from Europe has had a run of health problems and it has started to interfere with this friend's ability to keep earning an income. I've spent a couple of years talking to this person about freedom and free markets. Inevitably brought up then is the command-and-control commercial Communism of both the European continent and the Amerikan, as well as the destructiveness of taxation and government programs and the immorality of the violence upon which they base themselves.

Yet in the throes of sickness, this dear friend falls back on complaints of how hard the US is on the poor and the sick…how there are no truly effective programs to help those in need…how a chronic illness can bankrupt a person in this country.

Of course, in the free society we keep talking about, there would be help for the truly unfortunate without turning an otherwise capable people into a permanent underclass of dependents. The same instinct that has people using violence (simple-as-voting) to help the poor would still exist among the majority. Without taxation there would be more money to help the poor, and without government interference there would be more jobs and price deflation in the basics like food and housing. But, with free money spewing from the Federal Reserve System, as George Orwell put it:

War Is Peace

Freedom Is Slavery

Ignorance Is Strength

In short, there would be more help available and less help needed in a free market. There would be plenty of money to help those who truly couldn't take care of themselves. And despite the fears of those brainwashed by the state, there would be plenty of willingnes to provide that help from free individuals minus any coercion. We are not the violent animals the psychopaths in government would have us believe. And there is a biological drive to provide help when you can because on an animal level we all understand that we may need help ourselves at some point. Cooperation of the voluntary sort is not only more efficient…It's even more natural to our species than the contention bred by politics and governance. And so it must be. Or else freedom couldn't produce the voluntary, world-improving markets that it always does.

Who can deny that medical care is way too expensive in the US? But that's because of government regulation and interference in the medical market in the first place, not because of healthy competition and cooperation in a free market. This is causing a crisis that leads to the sheep bleating for complete nationalization…which will then lead to shortages, falling quality of care and more government debt (claims on the productivity of those not yet born).

It's easy enough to say all this here. It's much harder to explain to someone close to you who has been thoroughly warped by socialist indoctrination and a rough, poverty-ridden childhood. People like that develop the permanent toddler mentality and demand to be taken care of by the very productive people they hate. Mava, a regular poster in the comments section summed it up well:

The main point to take away from here it this: You will not ever be free from the reach of rich people if you engage in mutual limitation struggle. Remember, they are less lazy than you are, they have more powerful social connections, they are smarter, they have more knowledge, they have funds to assist them in any endeavour, and they have better morals than the poor.

So, the rich, are all around better people than the poor. There are exceptions, but in my experience, those are very rare. Most poor people I see daily are just stupid and lazy.This can be illustrated by taxing the rich. The working rich will be taxed, but the smart rich will not be. They will find a way or create a loophole, and by the time you fire it out and close it, they will create another one. This is like a turtle chasing a rabbit. Forget about it.

The only way, the only chance a thinking poor person has, is in severing the ties with everybody. Until he gets richer he will not get smarter and they will not ALLOW him to get smarter, they will keep dragging him down to the pitiful consequences of their own irresponsibility, so he must sever all ties. He must end the abusive relationship first, before he can get his life back. He must end the ridiculous responsibility for someone else's stupid choices. He must act directly against the most honored advice the poor give to each other: "stick together".

Instead of creating more ties, such as draft, the poor (if they weren't stupid and lazy and really wanted better life) should be demanding the destruction of unnatural responsibilities. They should be demanding no taxation, no draft, no state encroachment of individual rights.

Mava's advice to sever ties may seem extreme, but it is sound. Some people are truly beyond help and will only drag you down. (On a positive note, I've seen the light of reason creeping into the eyes of my other friends after long talks about non-aggression and the violent, wealth-destroying nature of politics.) Keep in mind, to transform a slave over 30 could take years. With younger minds, it can take an instant. Resource allocation is key.

As the government-addled Western economies really head into a tailspin, more than ever you will need to attach yourself to those with clear vision and who are willing to do the work to prepare. It's going to get ugly. More state theft, more surveillance, more state violence. If you're going to be in the US for all of this, you will want to have the team at TDV Homegrown on your side. And we're not saying to disown your loved ones. But learn to keep your distance. Their belief in, reliance on and emotional attachment to the state can be toxic.

Regards,

Gary Gibson
Editor, The Dollar Vigilante

Welcome back to your Sunday tradition: checking on what TDV wrote about in the past week. And what a week it was. Rand Paul threw down with the government, enduring a nearly 13 hour filibuster, showing that he has the FU attitude of his old man, the revered Dr. Ron Paul. Good to see someone standing up to the USSA's murder-drone policies. Unfortunately, Eric Holder signalled that "enemy combatants" couldn't be blown up domestically. So, that is good for all except Dollar Vigilantes.

Now, here's what we wrote about this week…

MONDAY, March 4

Junior Gold Stocks — The Best Buying Opportunity in Four Years, Possibly Ever

Jeff Berwick on what could be the opportunity of your lifetime.

There is an old saying: to "pound the table". It essentially means to vehemently assert one's position. I rarely pound the table. I am, as of today, pounding the table!

I am talking about the junior gold stocks. Gold stocks in general, but especially the juniors.

To preface, those of you invested in these securities in 2008 remember the worst crash of all time: the crash of the junior gold stocks from a high on the TSX-Venture exchange (where most are traded) of over 3,000 to under 700 in less than a year.

TUESDAY, March 5

The Coming Hunger Games: Young People Forced to Serve, Kill and Die

Jeff Berwick considers a possible return of conscription and mandatory “community” service in the USSA.

Most of these young people are going to prefer "community-based" unpaid labor to getting shot at by the people whom the US government invades and occupies. There will be no real safety in serving the civilian side of this forced labor for the state, however. H.R. 748 makes all persons between 18 and 25 able to be inducted into the uniformed services should the state determine there is such a need. When you consider the continued and growing military aggression of the US, it's almost a certainty that just about every young person in America will be exposed to live combat…maybe even domestically. Especially since it was just revealed that the Department of Homeland Insecurity has just made an order for 2,700 light armored tanks. Apparently, US subjects have a lot of security coming their way!

WEDNESDAY, March 6

First Record Dow, Then Record Gas and Grocery Prices

Gary Gibson on what the Dow’s record day really means.

We shudder to think of how much better employed that money would have been in the private sector. Instead it was mostly eaten by bureaucracy and used to fund the violent deaths of occupied peoples. And, of course, that borrowed money also sells unborn generations into debt slavery since they're the ones who will be paying it off along with the interest.

Also, we think the elation of higher stock prices will wear off when the newly created money inevitably works its way into the price of food and gasoline. As much as the government, central bank and their Keynesian enablers would like you to believe otherwise, newly created money won't just push up stock prices. It will work its way throughout the economy and drive up food, commodity and energy prices without driving up wages.

THURSDAY, March 7

British Government Stripping Citizenships so The United States Can Kill Them?

Justin O’Connell investigates some mysterious post-exile deaths.

Analysts are determining that once a UK citizen is stripped of citizenship, it is then easier for the US to designate them as enemy combatants, "to whom the UK owes no responsibility whatsoever." So, depriving people of citizenship means that the British government can be absolved when the US uses drones to track someone and kill them.

That’s what happened to the British car valet Mohamed Sakr. You have to watch out for those pesky car valets.

FRIDAY, March 8

Feedback Friday – March 8th, 2013

In this week’s Feedback Friday: Dr. Paul, TDV and finances, fear mongering, and more.