Memoirs of a Non-Mechanical Man

50 state economic freedom index

2006-05-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2006/05/50state_economi.html

I'm kind of wondering just how good a measure this "economic freedom index" is...considering the top 10 and the bottom 10

Top 10:

Kansas
Colorado
Virginia
Idaho
Utah
Oklahoma
New Hampshire
Delaware
Wyoming
Missouri

Bottom 10:

Massachusetts
New Jersey
Ohio
Minnesota
Pennsylvania
Illinois
Rhode Island
Conneticut
California
New York

Notice that two of the largest economies in the U.S. are at the bottom of the list, and two of the smallest at top.

Lessons learned from this semester

2006-05-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

1.) Do not take classes 5 days a week while working full time. Thou shalt instead compress classes into 2 or 3 days. I do not get sleep anymore. I am under full burnout. I'm getting C's in most of my classes this semester. This is not good.

2.) Never, under any circumstances take an online math class. Especially in conjunction with above. It's not as if in actuality its that difficult for me to learn the material without an instructor. The main difficulty is getting screwed up because of interface problems. Like when it marks an answer wrong because it wants fractions and not decimals. Or when (Frequently) there are no correct answers listed, or the graphic or java applet needed to solve the problem does not load correctly. And then when in combination with #1, a complete failure to get any work in on time.

To note, last semester I took math, econ 1&2, and Wing Chun Kung Fu. This semester I am taking Math, English, Spanish, And Wing Chun. Last Semester: 4.0's all around. This semester: At least 3 classes with a C....despite the fact that I usually get A's on the assignments (I've been missing class or handing in work late, etc.)

This Sucks.

A way to increase savings without radically changing the tax system

2006-04-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

First I shall explain the a few of the problems I have with "flat tax" proposals.

1.) They are highly, highly, and I repeat, highly regressive. They will in effect place much of the tax burden of the country on the middle class, and the poor, while giving the rich a free ride to get much much richer.

2.) Many of the proposals are unworkable, and would require a tax system even larger and more invasive than todays. For instance one idea of having no consumption tax for those who are poor, which would require proving they are poor at every point of sale transaction, not to mention no taxes on second hand goods, which would create a glistening black market in goods that "fell off the back of the truck", not to mention a shitload of paperwork to "prove" you are selling used goods. And then there's pre-bating people under a certain amount of income with free income, which would require a load of federal outlays with much paperwork.

3.) It leaves no discretion to utilize tax incentives. Which is both a good and a bad thing, it means you cannot subsudize pork-barrel projects, but you can also not subsidize infant industries, environmentally or socially healthy products, it would also mean you couldn't write off charitable contributions or the interest on buying a new house (which is something I'm not alltogether entirely against).

Honestly I think much of the bloated aid systems could be done away with by utilizing a combination of a Basic Income Guarantee and a Negative Income Tax Credit.

But if the goal is merely to increase savings (as it is for many economists) I would also warn them that policies which too heavily favor savings are likely to both a.) Increase inequality and b.) Slow growth. For an example of the former: See Third world Tax havens. For an example of the latter: See Japan.

I am wholly sympathetic with simplifying our current tax system, however I think I have a proposal for increasing savings which may work out very well.

The proposal is simple, require everyone that makes some percentage above the poverty line to save a small portion of their income in private savings for a short period of time. For our example we'll say everyone who makes 300% of the poverty line for their family size, and 5% of their income, after deductions. The period would be for two years. Every two years they could draw out the amount they had put in two years prior, plus its interest. It would be a private account, and subject to long term capital gains taxes, unless wholly invested in tax free investments of course. The trick here is that it would be in private accounts, and could be any risk level, rather than the low risk low yeild federally mandated private accounts as proposed by the bush administration.

The beauty of this is, it does not lock people into savings that they will "never see", so it will appeal to their short term time horizons, while still encouraging savings. Likewise, if they so choose (and I think on average many people will) they can learn to play the market. In otherwords it will encourage average people to take active roles in their investments. And if they choose not to, they can just pick a "lifestyle" mutual fund and do nothing else with it. The net effect will be a vast increase in the proportion of private savings, without dramatically lowering consumption. And since the time horizon is low, it will keep people from doing stupid things like they do now with very long time horizon investments like IRA's and 401k's, emptying it out with a tax penalty everytime they change jobs or want a new toy. Now they can have their windfall every couple of years while increasing national savings on average. And without a tax penalty.

Now, my own proposal goes slightly further; everyone that makes 150% of the poverty line or less should get a "credit" equal to 10% of their income invested for them. Those that make between 151% and 299% would recieve no credit, but would also not be required to put any of their money in such an account. The hope is, that by giving the poor a credit, and allowing them to choose how they invest it, they would on average still choose to invest at least part of their income as they move up the economic ladder.

I think much of the problem with savings is not so much involved in tax schemes, in so much as it is involved in ignorance at how savings works. Most people I know consider savings to be their bank savings account. Their 401k (if any) is usually something that they select from a limited number of funds allowed by their employer, by checking a box, and then never pay attention to.

Another thing we could do to dramatically improve savings is to make money management and rudimentary personal economics a required class in all highschools. I maintain that it is not primarily a problem of of the tax system in so far as it is a problem of information. When many economists wonder why people do not behave in a manner compatible with their best economic interests...perhaps the first thought that should pop into their head is that they may not be aware of it. Most specifically they may not know how to manage their finances in accordance to their best economic interests.

Thoughts on externalities

2006-03-28T04:16:00.000-08:00

An interesting idea hit me. Negative externalities of some marginal amount are present in all capitalist transactions, and indeed in all industrial production, but rightly of course the general consensus is that on average the private gains outweight the (average) social cost.

Or restated, though making a TV causes pollution, we'd rather have a TV than no pollution.

What struck me though, is to use the classical/neo-classical emphasis on the long run. Though the gains made from the short run production of widget X outweigh its short-run externalities, if externalities are the rule rather than the exception, then the long run consequences are disasterous.

Just an interesting thought, perhaps to bring up the next time I hear someone say "Yes but the long run equilibrium..."

Another thought struck me about classical labor pricing models, and how they don't seem to make much sense. The classic model basically posits marginal productivity * market rate, with emphasis on short run costs, and productivity. Yet what this implicitly states is that it is not primarily the market rate that sets labor pricing, but the capital of the employer. Whenever the employer improves his capital the marginal productivity of all employees increases. This also sets up an interesting conflict whereby you'd expect an employer to increase wages every time he purchased a new piece of machinery, which is pretty much false on the face of it. Also you'd expect an employer with ever increasing capital intensive production to hire ever more labor, while at the same time raising wages, to compound the marginal productivity. This conflicts with the fact that capital intensive production lowers concentration (and indeed sometimes the total amount) of labor. Macro-case in point: France has some of the most capital intensive production in the world, and 12%+ unemployment, though if you only count those that work they are the most productive workers in the world.

The key insight here is that employers pocket some portion of the extra marginal productivity difference when they utilize new capital, and that often new capital is used to replace labor.

But still, this basically says that wages are set by the capital investment of the employer, as ultimately that will reflect both how much labor they will use, how much they will pay, and the marginal productivity of the workers themselves.

Geopolitical "realpolitik" from a Jihadist

2006-03-10T04:37:00.000-08:00

Found this bit of salient wisdom by Abu Bakr Naji:

"The jihadi movement had been unsucessful in the past because the superpowers propped up these proxy governments and convinced the masses through the media that they were invincible. The solution, says Naji, is to provoke a superpower into invading the Middle East directly. This will result in a great propoganda victory for the jihadis because the people will 1.) be impressed that the jihadis are directly fighting a superpower, 2.) be outraged over the invasion of a foreign power, 3.) be disabused of the notion that the superpower is invincible the longer the war goes on, and, 4.) be angry with the proxy governments allied with the invading superpower. Moreover, he argues, it will bleed the superpower's economy and military. This will lead to social unrest at home and the ultimate defeat of the superpower.

Naji does not suffer under the illusion that the jihadis can defeat the United States in a direct military confrontation; rather the clash with the United States is more important for propoganda victories in the short term, and the political defeat of the United States in the long term, as its society fractures and its economy is further strained. Naji observes that this strategy was used with great effect against the Soviet Union and that it will work against the United States. Indeed it may work better against the United States because it does not have the ruthlessness or resolve of the Soviet Union."

From the West Point counter terrorist center, in the body of the research document here: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/Stealing%20Al-Qai%27da%27s%20Playbook%20--%20CTC.pdf

Its called "stealing Al Qaida's playbook" but really I think Al Qaida is likely using the strategy of "Many eyes make all bugs small" in reguards to their strategic doctrine.

A short essay I did for class

2006-02-16T20:15:00.000-08:00

I liked it, the writing is solid, so I figured I'd put it here. It's referring to this picture

On Sex and Illusions

See how easily the ad man pulls at your desires; so easily can he eroticize something even as mundane as a dress shoe. Everything in his art is programmed for maximum affect and nothing in its design is left to chance. He works to burn images into your mind using the best possible emotional appeal. Often the most effective and easiest way is to appeal to man’s greatest biological imperative: Sex.
Some subjects have an easier time using this technique as they are actually involved in the mating or courting process. Products like lingerie, cosmetics, etc. all have a very easy time using sex to sell their products, and more over the connection is casual and intuitive to the viewer. This picture is doing something a little different: It is trying to sell you sex itself.
Therefore, it is imposing the trans-substitution of values, what Marx would have called “Commodity fetishism”, the confusion of the symbol for the thing itself. The shoe here is not specifically related to the sex act, nor even necessarily to the courting ritual. Rather it seeks to pay to your erotic impulse and appeal to your sense of visual gratification. It is actually trying to sell you the sex, to use the consumer impulse as a release valve for repressed desire like a wicker man burned in effigy of Eros.
This effigy in particular is the compulsion to make you salivate, to create a reward association with the brand of shoe. It is to become an erotic icon, if not a sexual one, though it uses blatant sexual imagery. The ad itself cannot actually strive to make the product a sexual product, but rather a symbolic gesture to the viewer’s mind, to entice and tease his ego and lust. Notice also that the shoe is a dress shoe and it advertises itself as a shoe for gentlemen. We see here the implication of money and power, that like a king wears a crown to signify he is king and a peacock uses his feather bouquet to signify his virility this too is a signal to others of the suave and sexy.
Indeed more often than not, people rely on these signaling devices to put off an aura of desired qualities that they often lack. This advertisement is directly designed to pull toward those emotional insecurities. The contrasting black and white and suggestive leer of the tongue of the shoe is designed to actually stimulate the other senses subconsciously. The ad man wants you to smell the musk of sex and taste sweat on the body, to make you salivate and to weaken your ability to tell the symbol from the actual thing.
Through this substitution we are strung tight by our own physiological responses and lead along to believe that the qualities expressed can be ours if only we have the “right” commodities. We become men like paper tigers, plastered with the corporate logos professing things we wish we were. Moreover, our own desires may be kept in check and subliminated through avid consumption of their commodity simulacrums. This is done in a constant and ever-changing cycle so that the merchant may always have it thus:

That the Emperor indeed does have new clothes.

Toss up...

2006-02-06T02:56:00.000-08:00

While it's still some time yet as to when I'll end up going to a four year college, I am doing well so far and I've selected two colleges I'd like to attend. Either Berkely or University of Chicago. I'm fairly certain I can probably get accepted to either one. My only real concern is whether or not I can afford either one....but most especially the latter. Hopefully yes, by the time I finish @ college of the Desert, I should be about 24 years old or nearly so, so I should be able for financial aid @ University of Chicago.

Chicago of course has the most widely respected economics department in the U.S., my only problem is it also tends to be staffed with ideologues. Particularly, ones whom I will likely find contentious.

A utilitarian explaination to the first subject of my last post

2006-01-18T05:03:00.000-08:00

Using utility maximizing logic: Lets assume that you and I don't like eachother, you offer me $1.00 for my candybar, which would only offer me about $0.75 worth of utility in the form of something else I desire. Meanwhile the Candy bar will offer you about $1.25 worth of utility. It would seem that the transaction would be a "steal" for both parties, win-win. But I still wont sell you my candybar. What this would tell us is that I consider the opportunity cost of associating with you as an added value on top of the cash value of the transaction. E.g., doing business with you gives me negative utility. In this case, lets say I wouldn't part with my candy-bar to you at least for less than $5.00. Now that's way too much for you to get any utility out of my candybar.

In real world settings we've all ran into this, places that couldn't pay you enough to work for them because the working environment, or your co-workers were so bad. Or people you just refused to do any business with.

Ramblings

2006-01-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

Perfect information vs. Human Trust:

Let us assume for a moment that two actors in a transaction have perfect information about the product(s) being offered, and perfect information reguarding buyer and seller. Let us also assume that the product is satisfactory, and both buyer and seller know that the other will not cheat. Now, is it possible that they still will not deal with eachother? Disreguard reasonable substitues, other vendors, etc.

I say yes for a simple matter of human nature. If the buyer and seller do not trust nor like eachother, they may not co-operate, even when they know that the other will not cheat on their bargain. Its utterly irrational from an "enlightened self-interest" paradigm. However I think there may be an evolutionary explaination. Lets give an example:

Assume a fairly modest transaction, with no life or death consequences. You do not like/trust the person who's come to your lemonade stand to buy lemonade, they've proffered money up-front and there's plenty of witnesses and they are well known enough that you know they won't steal. Now, you might co-operate and sell or you might not. We're not talking lack of empathy through anonymity, e.g., a randomn customer. Rather this is someone you actively dislike or mistrust. Why might you not do business with them even if they've got the money? Essentially the reasons boil down to association. You do not want you, your product, etc. associated with that person. There are human rather than financial reasons which compel you not to associate with them. However, often these could turn into financial reasons. Take for instance a baby-food manufacturer that also makes bombs or what-not, and you get the picture. The association can ruin business.

As for why this might be important evolutionarily, it has to do with the fact that trading in our more cold economic sense developed out of a more tit-for-tat surivival sense in which a given transaction implied future dealings. The people you traded with were likely to be neighbors, ergo even if you structured a given deal so you could not be cheated, you would not want to associate or co-operate with someone who you disliked or didn't trust in the human sense as much as you possibly could. Because the feeling would be that they will do some harm, either through cheating, or harm by association at some point in the future. This is more or less the origin of social stigma, and why no one wants to be known as "Friend of the outcast" in the schoolyard, it serves as a reinforcement of social norms and thus contributes to group conformity and survival.

Which brings me to something somewhat unrelated. Given that social groups are designed to reinforce themselves, create inclusive and exclusive norms, symbols and indentifications, etc. It brings me to a postulate: That subtle coersion is the underlying dynamic of all group behavior.

This would lead to a rather dim view of the species, I suppose. Perhaps then there needs to be a slight redefinition of the term for our purposes then. In a group dynamic, norms and the like tend to be decided by an aesymetrical concensus over time. These become self-reinforcing as one desires the benefits of belonging in a given group, or contrary fears the consequences of not belonging. Excepting certain cases (cults of personality, etc.), who decides these customs and conventions cannot be explicity defined, rather they arise organically from the interactions of the members of said group. Ergo, the creation of norms and social signals cannot in it iself be thought of as coercive, so long as all members of the group are willing members. Its cultural dynamics are purely voluntary. Wherein lies the trouble is when groups compete of course, and that's where inter-group dynamics certainly do get coersive. Moreover, trouble arrives when one has less choice in the matter of belonging to a group, e.g., when your status vis-a-vis group consensus is thrust upon you. Examples include being born into a given status, or having beliefs or characteristics which automatically exclude you. In general this does not become touchy until you start involving real world goods and services, and things like weapons.

It becomes no wonder then how legalism and the rise of the state came into being, as an effort to normalize economic relations between groups that might not associate otherwise. I'm sure you can imagine examples for yourself with no difficulty. I work with and provide services for many evangelical christians, and I certainly would be excluded from their cultural functions, as I am neither evangelical, nor christian. In absentia of a hobbesian construct of some sort to normalize relations between easily identified cultural differences, its not uneasy to see what happens. One group will try to forcibly supercede the other, whether by force of arms or otherwise.

The conundrum however, arises thus. We are all quite unsatisified with the existance of the state in general. It's existence allways feels vaguely paternalistic and threatening, and indeed it has been shown variously that the existance of the state is contrary to personal (and often public) freedom even in its best form. How then do we structure a non-state construct that in so much literally "forces men to be free". In this case free by not killing eachother?

More-over, if we desire to not create a professional class of legalists (which would seem to replicate quite a bit of the functions of the state, or at least plant seeds to make the state reborn), how do we make it simple and functionable enough to be perfectly comprehensible to every man, yet assuring no loopholes?

I suggest some sort of reverse engineering of human social dynamics. Take for instance a universal Identification system. It's not bad in and of itself, its the element of the state that creates the problem. When all such a system does is identifies you to others you wish to interact with, it functions no more than an essentially highly trustworthy form of social signalling. It's only when the state (or another powerful entity) can track and harrass you with it that it becomes problematic. But again, there has to be some form of order that keeps different groups peaceful that also functions in tandem. Observe Rawandan holocaust where it was not necissarily the state that used the indentification against you, just a crazed group of "others" out to get you.

So we get to the next point, which is that violation of infractions would have to be easily dealt with, and peacekeeping would have to be easily obtainable. Of course, one of the original selling points of the state is convienence: You don't necissarily have to worry about the underlying public order as others are doing it for you. So there's that caveat to worry about as well.

It's also worth noting that this should not be concieved as a "minimalist state" solution, as because in my opinion minimalist states either rarely remain minimalist or rarely remain states. Likewise I find a will defined by pure majority to be equally repugnant, though it may satisfy a non-state solution, it certainly does not offer the best solution. Specifically if you happen to not be in the majority, and also happen to be right about something.

Just things to ponder toward a better tomorrow I guess. These are the underlying problems of the next few centuries. If people themselves don't figure out their own behavior and how to "hack it" to create a more free world, other powers will figure it out and learn how to program it toward their more controlled world.

Why the "information Society" is bogus.

2006-01-04T01:08:00.000-08:00

Well, not bogus per se. But its not happening. People don't care about "information" in the abstract sense. They will not build the "information society". Rather they will take your "information technology" and turn it into their "social networking technology".

While people may like being able to have all their information on portable devices, be able to do their bills and such from their cell phone, etc. That's not the primary thrust of what people actually use communication devices for. We use them for social networking. Remember how the PC was supposed to be a word-processor and spreadsheet system? Remember how it was supposed to be a fad? Note to gadget makers: People do not want "your" gadget. They want "their" gadget, which you just so happen to make. Observe the social status signaling derived from custom accessories and individualization of cell-phones and ipods.

People want to build, maintain, and customize their social-networks with communication and co-ordination devices. They really don't give a flying fuck about the informational capacity, or that their pocketbook can run excell. Granted these are pluses, and they will want them as features. But what people actually want is something like this:

Take 1 Video I pod, 1 cell phone camera, 1 Play Station Portable, and 1 pocket P.C. smash them all together until you have something that'll fit in your pocket, give it full wireless fidelity, and give it an easy an intuitive OS that's also secure and robust. And when I say easy, I mean exactly that. They'll want to be able to customize it just by manuevering a few icons around, or making a few gestures, or respond by voice. They'll want to be able to literally go "Find me a thai resturant within 10 minutes from where I'm at now." And be able to instantly tell all their friends that they're going to be at the thai resturant. They'll want to be able to make movies, draw on it, manage all of their finances, pay with it, watch movies, play video games, chat with friends, co-ordiante activities etc.

But this is the kicker, which applies especially to you gadget makers: They don't want you to have any control over any of their information. They do not want to play in your "information society". They want their social network to be easy to manage and as expandable and contractable as they like, and they want to be fully able to control every feature they do or do not use on this little mega-gizmo. And they don't want you to know anything about them. I.e., they don't want your database compiling econometric information on their buying habits, they don't want to have to worry about their identity being stolen, either by losing the device, or having your data-base raided.

It has to be secure, so secure that no one else could get their info, but at the same time not asking them for a password every few seconds, or bothering them everytime they link to a wireless network. They want a tool, you want to offer them your technocratic vision of the future, they want what people have allways wanted, their social life.

Ergo, I cannot stress this enough: They don't want "Your" gadget. They don't care how convienent it is, its not even that they care loads about privacy, its about control. They'll gladly tell you much about themselves and share demographic information, so long as its opt-in, rather than a standard feature. Otherwise it turns your wonder-gizmo into a creepy paper-weight.

Which brings me to two more points: PSP vs. Ipod. Ipod has done alot to encourage both personal customization and buying aftermarket products from 3rd party vendors, etc. They've done extremely well this way. PSP has purposely crippled their OS so that you can't run your own programs on it. Which is a stupid stupid mistake. Because people want their PSP to be theirs, not Sony's. They don't want sony to decide what it can and cannot run. It's not as if they'd stop buying sony products, rather they're going to buy stuff that sony doesn't sell, or doesn't sell or package well, and use it. It's a network benefit for the PSP that they completely shot out of the water. Which is why I predict the PSP will become a dead-paperweight system pretty shortly.

Second point relates to the conflict I've been trying to illustrate. Technology is moving in two directions, from one perspective the suppliers of various communication technologies are trying to create an ordered technocratic informational supra-structure where all data can be cataloged and acessed on anyone at any time, down to their dna signature. Granted, they don't want say the average person being able to access it, but they want the technocratic buerocracy to have this information. At least in aggregate. Though likely overtime it will become in specific too. Governments and corporations both fall into this category as they both want it for slightly different, but essentially the same reason: It makes their lives easier. They know more about their customers, or citizens, they know what they want, what they're doing, and how to manipulate them. One wants this ability for the good of the bottom line, the other for the good of the state.

Now the side of the equation is that people want this technology too, they want fluid movement, fluid social networking, ease of use and communication, etc. But they don't want people easedropping, compiling them into biometric data, and regurgitating specifically designed ads or knowing where they're at all the time. People want the ability to be left alone and not to be watched or cataloged as much as they want fluid networks. In other words, people want a reliable and accurate information supra-structure.....and they want no one to control it. They want all their communications to go through essentially a PGP system that doesn't require as much technical knowledge. A global free-net that's easy to use and fast. They'll still gladly shell out demographic information...so long as its their choice to do so.

So again: they don't want your information society. They want their mobile commons, their personal city on the hill. In otherwords: their human, their going to use this in human ways, not in technocratic ways.

Sorry for not posting in months.

2005-12-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with the birth of my new baby, and with starting school. I'm doing tremendously well at the latter, I have solid A's this semester.

Academically I've been increasing my math skills so I can do more work in game theory, still have a ways to go there. I've also been studying various forms of kung-fu. I've added about 10lbs in muscle to my frame, as I've started a new diet and exercise routine.

As for my normal emphasis on politics currently I can only entirely agree with this sentiment: http://cryptome.org/small-call.htm In short, the president has comitted a felony, approximately 30 times or more. Of course, he will not be impeached over this. But it remains incontravertable fact none-the-less.

In the sphere of economics specifically I don't have much new to offer. I've been reading Schrumpter in reguards to his theories about capitalist development. I think he's wrong in his playing down of the effects of oligopoly, I also think his "perrinial gale of creative destruction" doesn't do quite what he thought it does. Rather, quite often creative destruction does not re-arrange players in the game. The new product simply gets acquired by the largest players and replaces their previous products. Without changing their position at the top. I think with especial reguards to the modern development of corporate entities this will prove an accurate description over longer and longer periods of time. I also reject his contention that creative destruction is purely a capitalist dynamic. Likewise he seems guilty of romanticising the primitive bourgoise as much as marx villified them.

I've also thought of an interesting problem. Let us suppose that one industry is in long-term equilibrium but any given other industry is not. That would imply that economic profit in said industry is at zero. If we look at assumptions from decision theory we'd expect that long-term equilibrium to actually collapse fairly quickly, as people would move their capital investment to industries where economic profit was still possible, thus creating conditions where economic profit would be possible again in the first industry. This seems to imply that actual long-term equilibrium is only possible if ALL industries are in long-term equilibrium, which would in itself prevent zero (normal) economic profit, without any further invention, innovation, etc. One could describe the financial side of such an economy as an "economy of the permanent bubble".

Another thing as well: It seems to me that competitive markets collapse to less than perfect forms over time through a natural process. This is of course counter-intuitive to standard thinking on markets by many economists, but I believe the process is inherent even without government intervention. Essentially any time there would be a squeeze in a market which caused a mass exit from the market, or market innovation, it would behoove firms with a good position in the market to better their position and adopt a strategy of acquiring market power.

This leads to a precarious position: the only winning strategy for a firm, once other firms have adopted a strategy of acquiring market power, is to adopt a strategy of acquiring market power themselves. This results in a tendancy towards less than perfect competition, right from the get-go.

Anyways, thats what I've been up to. Ciao

Financial Advise for my friends

2005-05-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

Since I've started my investment account I've been getting more than a few questions from my friends reguarding financial advise. So I thought I'd drop in my more or less unbiased thoughts on the matter.

401k or not?

Generally speaking, if your employer offers a 401k, with a matching contribution, not only should you take it, but you should put in at least the maximum amount they match to. This lowers your taxable income now, but on the otherhand: whenever you go to pull that money out after retirement you get taxed on it as income. Now most people tend to think that they will be making less money in retirement, personally though I think that's a bad way to look at it if you're trying not to starve when you're older. If nothing else, you want to have *more* assets when you retire don't you? As such, if you pull out from your 401k $50,000 a year, you're going to get taxed on it at about 28% according to today's current tax rates. Of course, income taxes could allways go *up* too.

However, if your employer doesn't match, or even if they do, but only to a ridiculously low amount, its probably better to open up a Roth IRA. A Roth is different from a traditional IRA in the sense that you pay taxes now, but nothing on what your money earns in interest over time. That means when you retire, and you draw out that same $50,000, you pay absolutely zero taxes. Also IRA's are different from 401k's, in that you can set them up usually with more options, and you can actively manage it yourself if you want. Also, you don't have to pull out of it at a certain age unlike a traditional IRA/401k, which requires withdrawls by the time you're 72 and 1/2.

Now, lets weigh the advantages:

Traditional IRA or 401k:
Advantages
Employer Usually Matches.
Less Taxes now.
Disadvantages
All gains are taxed later as income
No Active Management for a 401k (usually)
Employers often match your contribution in company stock.

Roth IRA:
Advantages
All interest gained on money is untaxed.
Disadvantages
Employers usually do not match a Roth IRA
You have to pay taxed on it now, which may or may not put some of your money in a higher tax bracket.

Now, lets look at some other simple options:

Savings Accounts: Are simple, but offer allmost no growth (usually well below inflation), and do your money really no good, aside from maybe keeping you from spending it. Best to be used only as a temporary account to put money allready acrued, for large short-term purchases.

Money Market: You can shop around for alot of different yeilds on these, usually the best single yeild I've found for smaller investors is http://www.virtualbank.com. They're only slightly more complicated (number of widthrawls, some require minimum balances, etc.) than savings accounts but offer much better yeilds. Do not use these are retirement accounts, their yeilds are increadibly low compared to other investments, with virtual bank topping out most of them at 3.05%

Municipal Money Market: Great places to put cash you haven't decided what to do with, make sure that the money market is reputable, and that the financial standings of the municipalities its invested in have been fairly good in the past. Municipal bonds can be tricky to directly manage yourself, as generally the safest bets offer the lowest returns, while those with the worst credit ("junk bonds"), offer the highest returns, but also the highest risk. I personally, am not into the bond market, so I won't make too many comments on it. Bonds are seen as a "safer" investmen than stocks by some investors, historically however stocks have allways out preformed bonds. I keep my uninvested cash that I don't immediately need to spend in a municipal money market fund; Why you ask? Because they're tax-free. Totally tax free.

CD's and Treasury Bonds: Long term investments, usually offering better returns the longer you give them your money, simple investments for many people with little money. Also well liked are Zero-cupon bonds (Which are bought for less than their face value) for the same reason, and inflation adjusted bonds, which are guaranteed to accrue inflation plus X amount in interest. Personally I consider the last one among the best if you're going to buy into bonds, and are not going to play the "bond market".

Mutual Funds: The advantages of a mutual fund, are that you can engage in alot of different market activities (such as option chains, and commodities), without having to know exactly how to do any of it. In otherwords, you're pooling your money with other people, and someone else is using their knowledge to play more complex investment strategies than you know, or can individually afford. On the other hand, they make money by taking a percentage of what you put in, sometimes this can total up to 2% or more of your gains, which can mean alot of money over time. Its best to shop around to find a good mutual fund (Remember, IRA's and 401ks are mutual funds too), 2% might be worth it if it's been returning 15% on average for the last 10 years or so (Hedge funds make insane amounts of money, and usually take 20% of the gains). Likewise, indexed funds (funds that are simply electronically indexed against the DJIA, S&P 500, or another index) tend to be cheaper than other mutual funds. They also, on average, tend to fair better. On the other hand, ETF (exchange traded funds) are even cheaper, and you can buy and sell them like stocks. Life-cycle mutual funds are also good for retirement as they re-adjust themselves the closer you get to retirement. One Caveat Emptor: Make sure if you have a life-cycle fund that the fund manager(s) are properly re-calibrating your investments as you get older, alot of them have been discovered to do it improperly.

Securities Accounts:By securities, I mean stock brokerages mainly. There are do-it-yourself sites like ameritrade and e-trade (I use e-trade), discount brokerages, and full service brokerages. Generally speaking, thats also the order of "how much of a cut they take". Full service brokerages offer alot of investment advice and strategies, but they may be biased toward their own investments. The advantages of brokerage accounts as a suppliment to retirement accounts are many, there's no "Tax penalty" of 10% for drawing out of them before retirement, and if you hold your stock for more than a year its taxed at 15% flat instead of income tax. Also, generally speaking you are on average going to get an increased return, usually well in excess of a money market or what-have-you, you may or may not get that raise come your annual review, but the money you've allready earned is growing, to give you a de-facto raise anyways.

Anyways, those are generally the options available to the average non-rich person. And that should serve as a quick introduction of how to get more money via investment. Also, generally speaking the best way to get more money is to get more degrees.

Finally, a few stock strategies to make things easier:

Indexing: Simply indexing your stock holdings against a economic index. Advantages are simplicity, and less risk, plus you can generally expect a good return. You can either buy stocks in equal measure to an index, buy ETF's, or buy into an indexed mutual fund.

Dogs of the Dow: Or S&P 500, or any other index. It's a variation on indexing, that basically says "Why follow the whole index, and not just the top dogs?" Historically this has been a fairly successful strategy. Buy equal amounts (say 100 shares) of the top 10 stocks on the index, and every year adjust for equal holdings, if someone drops off the top 10, sell their shares and buy the newcomers. Now, it has some drawbacks, sometimes the best preforming on a given year might all be in one sector and if that sector does poorly you may lose on all your holdings. Likewise, lets say the entire index goes down in a given year, usually the companies at the top are best readied for a general loss....on the other hand, they might be responsible for the whole downturn of the index by being in major financial trouble. Likewise, lets say the whole of the index does poorly that year, that doesn't necissarily mean that say #50 didn't do good, and move up to say #25.

Also, you can follow the purchases and long term holding strategies of the "best players" of the market like say George Soros, or Warren Buffet. Or, if you have alot of money you could allways buy into Berkshire Hathaway, ran by Warren Buffet. When he went public, it traded at $8 a share, now about 30 years or so later, preferrred shares go for around $85,000 and B shares for around $2,500. He's out preformed every last major economic index, and has had a 5,000% return over the life of the company, averaging about 30% interest per year, every year.

Of course, he's in his 70's and has no clear successor. When he dies, Berkshire Hathaway will inevitably go down in price per share, but there's a question whether or not his successor will perform as good as him...

Then again I don't have $85K sitting around, so I don't worry so much.

Short update after my long hiatus

2005-05-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't died. I've just been very busy. I've been trying to get my finances together and we've been planning for the delivery in september. Also I've been suffering a long bout of writers block that hasn't gone away too much. Part of it probably has to do with not being around too many people where I'm able to discuss ideas in depth at all.

Bummed about that.

I've been wanting to get together with people in person and share ideas and build networks, and I just really haven't had the time or real opportunity out here. There's a real derth of interested people out here, even in our own local problems. And my own personal concerns have also taken first place over that. Personal concerns primarily revolve around money and lack-there-of, what else is new.

Not all doom and gloom though, I've opened up an investment account and taken some good steps toward increasing my income.

My current 5 year plan of sorts is to land some form of employment where I'm making approximately $2,500 a month after taxes (or about $30,000 net a year), so that after my expenses I'll be able to invest around $800 to $1000 a month. Which also means if I adopt long term holdings I'd be taxed at a lower rate as well. I also need to start school, and to do that I probably need to get a laptop, but I'm not particularly looking foreward to that expenditure.

Kinda unsure about how my future in the particular property I'm at is going, I'm hoping they're not looking for excuses to pass me up for promotion. I really like it here but simply cannot afford not to get a (well deserved mind you) promotion, and corresponding pay raise. I'm really not being utilized to the best of my abilities either, I could do alot more, and bring in more revenue or improve operations if given the chance. The problem is we have too insular of a decision making process and communication is allmost allways one way. Essentially the head doesn't know what the feet are doing, and vice versa.

Anyways, not too much to comment about concerning current events and such. I've simply shut myself off from that for awhile. I've been giving myself a break from it and reading more books. I'm going to look into distance learning. I'd like to be able to get an actual degree online, rather than the generally crap degrees offered by "online universities". Why they're only offering crap degrees is beyond me. The technology is there that I should be able to go for just about any degree I want and be able to do most of, if not all of, the work and study online. I don't want a technical nor vocational degree goddamnit.

I do promise more rants in the future though, and hopefully some more essays sometime soon.

Nil Carborundum Illigitum

Also on the subject of peak oil....

2005-04-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

Two articles for your digestion:

From Rolling stone

From Global Guerrillas

General Update

2005-04-05T04:34:00.000-07:00

Working on an essay/thesis/manifesto/blueprint thingy for formation of communities and organizations of correspondance deeply rooted in pursuit and practice of civic plurality and freedom.

Its in the very rough abstract phase at the moment, but its based on the principal that more rights alone does not a free people make. Rather, it takes a community and culture fostered heavily in the exercise and promotion of liberty and freedom to properly foster respect for freedom in individuals. Or to put it another way, one can give a person millions of rights, and provide them with little regulation or impediment to actions, but without the proper socialization in the exercise and respect of freedom you could no more expect an individual to respect another persons rights or freedom in general as that individual could expect others to respect his.

The above italicised portion refers to explicity why a wholly atomized and privatized state would never work. It makes no distinction between liberty and liscense, and denigrates the concepts of freedom and liberty to merely the abscense of impediment to action. If one defines liberty this way, it becomes naturally conclusive that there are only two ways to logically be free of anothers impediments to your actions:

1.) Isolate oneself.

or

2.) Conquer and subjigate them.

To properly ensure freedom requires a public life, public goods, and public civics to foster both private and public virtues. Such a public however must be composed of shared values of non-litigous or liscensious mutual aid and freedom. People are freest when they act in concert to exercise, deliberate, and protect their freedom. That is, a specific call for a revitalized public sphere where there is direct community self-management, plurality, and participatory democracy. Such a sphere should also not be too intrusive into individual rights or wholly private and non-injurous conduct. However, it should be built upon, and foster a philosophy of moral and ethical equality, the pursuit and exercise of freedom, and the growth of individual and communal freedom. The need for both is quite clear: If you were dropped alone on a deserted island you would be absolutely free, yet you would likely still be unhappy, as you are not free to participate in community. Likewise, communities must be free, and built upon just a free principals: One would also be unhappy in a community that was free to do whatever it wanted to you.

It is necissary to explain my concept of freedom a little bit. It is wherever power is not highly concentrated, hierarchies or castes of illigitimate sorts (that being most of them) unwelcome, where general livelihood is in improvement, existence of great opportunity unimpeded by public nor private tyrannies (hard or soft), and where people exercise responsibility toward proper conduct, concern and compassion for the wellbeing of their fellow man, and pursue justice in light of undue hardship.

That is, it makes no sense to live in a community that has infinite liscense, but no care (You can do whatever you want, just don't expect anyone to help you, this is in effect the society of a prison colony, or of say Somalia), nor a community where there was no crime, yet enforced by an omnipresent panopticon of policing power. Likewise it makes no sense to live a society composed of akward delinations to both extremes, resulting in a great latitude of liscense, and a great many police, which quickly fosters social disentigration and produces a mockery of liberty. That is to say, a society like we have today.

The mores of freedom are precisely that, social mores that when not in exercise quickly dissipate. While the rapidly collapsing fabric of a free society can be temporarily propped up by the force of law, it will not hold. Law is there to act in the favor of justice, when men are incapable of that compacity themselves. A proper measure of how far a society has lost its common decency is easily correlated to how much the courts have had to right its injustice. That is not to say that the courts are incorrect in their judgements (Civil rights comes to mind, they were most certainly correct), only that they are having to act because of insufficient justice, forebearance, respect for freedom, and goodwill within society at large.

Such a society becomes composed in opposition to freedom, at first to some of its members (blacks in antibellum society for instance), and then to all members who disagree or somehow deviate from the stated prejudice. It is necissary then, to create a social-evolutionary stance in stated favor of greater freedom. Not simply rights enshrined, but the pursuit of greater livelihood, and for greater control over the conditions of ones personal and social life. This includes free labor, free government, free society, and free individuals.

For this, the proper social contract could be in fact stated: Each problem delegate only the powers according to its need, and according only to its ability. That is to say, what problem may exist that a local community or organization may solve, a state government is unnecissary, to what a state government can solve, a national government is unnecissary, and what a family or friends can solve, all of the above are unnecissary. That is of course, assuming that such courses of action are taken under in the values of a moral equality, justice, and freedom. (I.e., if the attempt at solution is to violate some measure of another's worth, then it obviously falls for review by another authority.) Such a society is deliberative, and arbitrative, not liscentious nor litigous. It is a society of interests which compete toward the goal of better co-operation, not to stamp out difference. In otherwords, it is composed much like the model scientific community: Individuals compete with their ideas, but it is the sharing and co-operation amongst those individuals which advances those ideas to progress.

In short conclusion to this introduction about what I'm working on; It is wrong to conclude that men are angels, but to conclude that they are devils is to inevitably make them so. Thus, a society composed on liscense and free vice is as likely to become hobbesian as a society composed on complete autocratic protection from vice. They are not opposites, they are mirror images.

Tchuss.

Fear and Loathing in the New Millenium

2005-03-27T06:09:00.000-08:00

Concurrently we may be approaching the home stretch of our one shot at technological civilization. Or, if you will, the final flip of the coin determining whether man receeds into the next, and possibly permanent dark age.

Before you start labelling me an alarmist, I actually side tenetavely on the side of optimism.

So, now to explain the scarey parts. Currently persistant technological and economic growth depend on amounts of energy only really feasibly (under current or projected technological advancement) suppliable by petrochemicals. Thats not to say it couldn't be replaced, only that it would require a significant portion of world GDP to put into place, and would likely not be implimented in time. You can now expect oil prices to rise, they will never fall again, and it unlikely they will ever stagnate for any lengthy period of time. As supply of oil falls, its not just oil that gets more expensive, everything else down the line does as well. Energy is the primary input required for all industrial output, it does not function like a normal commodity, it has consistant inelastic demand. Any major increase in oil price will directly correspond to a decrease in industrial output, unless an equivilent amount of energy is put back into production from another source to make up the price differential.

Its important to reiterate that in the foreseeable future, under market circumstances: No such technology or combination of technologies exist that can wholly replace the energy output cheaper than fuel, even steadily rising fuel costs. Even by the time fuel prices have risen to the point where another technology is economically feasible, it will only be economically feasible in a much smaller economy. That is, every major corresponding rise in fuel price due to scarcity will have an effect to slow and diminish growth. This will mean that when the rise in fuel prices (due to physical scarcity, not simply demand) exceed the rate of general productive growth, productive growth will fall every year after that, untill the costs of excavating fuel in energy quotients, exceed the energy procured. After that, barring some major replacement (of which it might allready be far too late for a market oriented solution to do any good), exponential economic collapse will ensue.

Now, looking at this from a strictly economic perspective one would say: the size of the productive output of the economy would simply diminish to sustainable levels based on energy production from renewable sources.

This view excepts two major problems: Current economic models, both real and imagined, are based around the concept of persistant economic growth. Any restructuring to the opposite would result in a huge economic fallout and generally persistantly unstable markets. I.e., reality would go contrary to conditioned market pyschology.

Secondly, in real human terms, since there is a requirement for persistant growth from current economic standpoint, and since global population is expected to rise exponentially (thus neccessitating more energy for food production, on less and less arable land, for greater amounts of diminishing energy, among other things) a persistantly diminishing global economy means persistant famine, disease, and disorder.

That is, that a rapid shrinking of the economy would cause social upset creating a futher destruction of the economy, perhaps very much below the point of energy equilibrium (as the power and industrial infrastructures are destroyed and fall into disrepair) so much that we don't simply fall into a global dark age, but also an only semi-metaphorical global stone-age. The subsequent loss of vast amounts of fossil fuel, raw industrial materials, and industrial infrastucture, coupled with complete social disentigration could in fact act as to prevent any further industrial development.

That is to say: That if industrial society collapses, it may never repeat itself.

Now to some people who might see this through rosey colored lenses as a "return to nature", you hippies are in for a rude awakening. Think of the various wars of the middle ages (the 100 Years War comes to mind) coupled with vast industrial and nuclear pollution, rogue nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, modern munitions, and vast warzones. Sure, everyone is living in huts, but everyone has AK-47's too. And it only took bronze axes and sheep to turn the fertile crescent into a vast desert. In otherwords, life would be nasty, brutish, and short.

Now for the optimism: If renewable energy sources recieved anywhere near the vast public subsidy afforded to fossil fuel consuming industrialization, we'd rapidly evolve our abilities to diversify and appreciate our renewable energy inputs. You would still see some economic fallout, simply because it is unlikely at this point that even starting now and pouring WW2 levels of funding into it, you'd be able to catch up to the decline fast enough. However, it would be much diminished than waiting for price signals (rather than energy peak), which by then would allready be too late. This method also has the advantage of consigning much fewer people to premature death. Likely at most only in the hundereds of millions rather than billions. Secondly, you could drive to intelligently reduce waste of energy, much of our industrial power infrastructure is not much changed since the 1950's and endures enormous amounts of energy waste that is fully within technical feasibility to eliminate. Likewise with engine fuel efficiency in vehicles (Funfact, most fuel efficient land vehicle ever constructed got about 8,500 miles on one litre of petrol). Highly promising is ultra-capacitor technology which would greatly dimish the energy and economic costs of storing electrical energy. There's also a slew of promising technologies in renewable energy, waste reduction, disposal, and recycling. What all of these lack however is consistant steps to actually attempt to impliment them. There's an economic addiction to petroleum that is causing a dangerous ignorance of its demise, and the consequences of not implimenting renewable sources now.

It's allmost never good to procrastinate, and its downright dangerous to do so in this case.

One more caveat emptor: Hydrogen is a trojan-horse. As of right now the only feasible way to produce enough is nuclear fuel (the projections based on getting hydrogen from water via electrolysis or natural gas all like to ignore the laws of thermodynamics), which of course is patently risky. But hydrogen is also even more volitile and harder to store than gas, and would still be more expensive (nuclear reactors require outside energy input, most likely from oil), and would likely accellorate environmental damage. Why then is it touted? It would allow existing fuel interests to control supply and demand and use existing infrastructure. More than likely it would only slow the pace of the decline if impliment, however it might lead to disasterous shortsightedness.

Okay, done with work, gotta go home, laters folks.

Sweet Nothings

2005-03-20T05:15:00.000-08:00

If anyone actually reads this blog regularly, you'd be wondering why I haven't posted in awhile. For one thing, I've been reading and playing video-games too much, but for another I haven't really found that much that is interesting right now in contemporary politics. Thats not to say there aren't important issues: we're now in the 3rd year of the Iraq war, the Terri Schiavo case, the hornet's nest of issues brought up in Fast Food Nation (which I just finished reading), etc.

Terri Schiavo deserves a side note, I don't know how it got to be that the media has framed the whole issue as a religious conservative vs. atheist liberals issue. I for one, support keeping her alive, while still being a radical and an atheist. It doesn't tie into the abortion debate (no matter how much ideologues would like to try), it instead boils down to this: If she's aware enough to suffer from her condition, then she is certainly aware enough to suffer from starvation by having her feeding tube removed (essentially the only "life support" shes on), if shes not suffering and responds physically and emotionally to close family members with a wide range of emotional reactions (which seems to be the case), why not exhaust every opportunity to try and help her?

We're having to take her husbands word that she wanted to die if brain damaged, a man who stands to gain money from her life insurance, and who is wanting to remarry with a woman he is currently sleeping with.

A sincere conflict of interest if there ever was one.

The Iraq war? People are dying, the government isn't pulling out anytime soon, and is currently haphazardly on the edge of political and military fallout should any one of the various nations that its turned into diplomatic powderkegs decide to call the governments bluff. There's still the looming propensity of the draft, the possibility of functional democracy in Iraq being more or less anyone's guess right now (but I temper my inherent cynicism on this issue with a wide degree of hope), and a very real possibility that the conflict could still spill over throughout the entire middle east.

As for Fast Food Nation....I'm done eating meat (excepting maybe organic meat slaughtered under Kosher supervision). Our meatpacking industry hasn't changed fundamentally since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle. Yes, its really that bad. You should read the book yourself.

But primarily why I'm bored with most of these issues has little to do with their importance, but rather the importance of the things I've been mulling over privately.

Mostly I've been thinking about heirarchies, control, coersion, the way physical landscape helps foster social alienation or inclusion, new urbanisim, and how to revitalize actual civics. That is, the social underpinning of civilization, right now we have a poor parody of it carefully tailored by various ideological interests for mass manipulation and infotainment.

And while certain activist groups and such have made headway, its been inconsistant. When you win or loose a battle on an issue, you don't suddenly dissolve. Also your singular issues do not exist in a vaccum, and often by being too singular you end up appearing extremist. Although, by appearing too broad you end up appearing out of touch. The point is, create a common social element consisting of specific leagues of change/protest, what have you. I don't mean stereotypical ones either, I mean we should actively be trying to impliment social change: founding communities, focusing on how to impliment technologies in ways that fit into society, rather than being an imposition on them. In other words: You want to change the world? Put your money where your mouth is. Network, work to change society by creating a new model. I'm not talking utopian, just better.

Its important to look at classic entrepenurial capitalist myth (I say myth, because even in the old days they were the exception, not the rule, but even back then they were more common than now): The man who has nothing, crawls up from the gutter, risks everything on a new idea, and profits from it hence. Quite frankly, thats also how new culture is formed. You want a world that is more free? Start a community that is more free, more together, and more alive. Risk it, do it. I think if activists spent a bit more time trying to create a new community that was ethnically diverse, low crime, ecologically sustainable, and aesthetically pleasing, I think change would be rapidly forth coming.

Move your ass, and their minds will follow.

Personal Update

2005-03-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

Not much to write right now. I'm going with Ro to get her an ultrasound today (to those I haven't told allready, we have another [and most likely last, at least for the next 18+ years] child on the way). I also found an Aikido dojo nearby so I'll go to class either today or thursday, depending on how much sleep I get today.

I'm fleshing out ideas and thoughts on how to approach in reality the model I presented in my last post. I will be posting soon about that, and will probably post less about other things in preference to that.

One last thing I'd like to share, that I support with some reservations is this idea about overhauling social security:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002191407_oneill27.html

My main reservation lies in how to fund the transition, and pay out those allready in the current SS system. I wouldn't support a raise in the percentage of the tax, nor massive borrowing, but I would support an elimination of the 90k cap on social security taxes. It would be more than enough to fund the transitional costs and pay out those allready in the system (i.e., we could increase their benefits while phasing them out.)

Toward an Ideal Society

2005-02-20T06:01:00.000-08:00

Much as economicists construct ideal models of economies from which to make baseline deductions toward real economies I feel it is necissary to make a model of an ideal society from which to make base deductions toward real societies.

Also, just as the economist must make assumptions to make ideal models work, so too must we make assumptions. The first assumption of course shall be what constitutes an ideal model in the first place. I feel this is probably the most reasonable assumption to make, using a razor of enlightened self-interest it is fair to say that an ideal society would be that which maximizes freedom and minimizes human suffering. This is a fair assumption to make because each individual would like the greatest amount of personal freedom and the least amount of suffering for themselves, thus it can be said that the perfect society would be that which allowed each and every individual maximum freedom and minimum suffering.

Now, toward that end we must make two further assumptions.

Number One, That every individual has full knowledge of the eventual consequences of all their actions. This is necissary to prevent externalities of unforseen consequences, and is fundamentally the same as the economicists assumption of fully informed producer and consumer.

Number Two, That the laws of this society immutable, inalienable, and invioable. That means that it is impossible to repeal or violate its laws.

This ideal society however, has only seven laws divided into two parts. The first three are liberatory prohibitions, or those prohibitions which are necissary for freedom to be maximized and suffering to be minimized. That is; they are freedoms from. The next four are axioms of autonomy, that is freedoms of or to.

The First Three Laws:

1.) Freedom from Oppression, Dominion, and Coersion.

2.) Freedom from Harm, Violence, and Injustice.

3.) Freedom from Privilege, Poverty, and Hunger.

The Next 4 Laws:

4.) Freedom of Voluntary Association and Assembly.

5.) Freedom of Thought, Speech, and Conscience.

6.) Freedom of Self-determination.

7.) Freedom of any action not in violation of any other Freedom.

Notes: In law 3, privilege is meant to mean much the same as "equality of opportunity", it also makes it a prohibition against racism, sexism etc. Law Seven can also be stated: "Freedom of any action not in violation of another's freedom."

This is the baseline model of an ideal society, by which all societies may be judged, and all may be compared to gauge their progress.

More to add later.

Full Text of the Letter I have sent to DNC chairman Howard Dean

2005-02-14T05:42:00.000-08:00

I have a bit of advice to offer, partially in hope that you will adopt it, and partially out of warning as to your chances of winning should you not adopt it.

The primary problem with the Democratic party is that it has lost the entirety of its voice, by abandoning the constituency it nominally represents and by losing its ability to articulate its goals clearly and ways that appeal to all americans.

To put it bluntly, moving "rightward" has cost you the last two elections. Even moderate republicans and independants do not want "Republican Light".The entire Kerry campaign read like this: "Same taste, less carbs."
You need a wedge issue that is not a reaction to conservative policies, but is a voice of its own. I know of such an issue:

The constitutional right to a job at a living wage. This would be a new mandate for progressives, and the Democratic party in particular. It would become a supercession to the New Deal, and give the Democratic party a new legacy, not to mention credibility and relevancy.

The advantage of pursuing this as the primary campaign goal of the democratic party is this, it appeals to both progressive ethic, and conservative populist ethic. Most conservative americans, from moderate to hardline believe that everyone who can work should work, and most also believe that a person ought to be able to live decently by the fruit of their labors.

This is the primary reason for their opposition to entitlement programs.
If you present this correctly, and push it as your primary agenda, you'll have an unbeatable wedge issue. What can the Republican party come up with that's even compareable? Privatising social security? Anti-homosexual agenda?

It pales in comparison to ensuring an elimination to unemployment and poverty.

So, in conclusion, I urge you to adopt this as your party's primary agenda throughout the next 4 years, and for the next election. Should you not, then not only will I not vote for you, I will encourage everyone I know, everyone I meet, not to. Failing to find a significant legitimate voice will simply relegate your party to non-relevance, and I will do my best to ensure that it will happen with utmost swiftness should you not become an actual party of opposition.

Sincerely,

Matthew Crisp
http://ubericarus.blogspot.com/

_______________________________________

EDIT AND POST SCRIPT:

Consider this the opening salvo of the "Fuck You, I Won't Vote For You" Campaign.

Social Security: An Open Letter to Bush, Democrats, the Media, and everyone else who hasn't bothered to bring this up.

2005-02-12T05:39:00.000-08:00

Recently President Bush has chicken littled to the effect that the social security is in dire straits. From democrats I hear very real and valid criticisms to the effect that he is in fact pushing a false agenda (this president? *gasp* Say it ain't so!) He has also said "I will listen to anyone who has a good idea to offer." I haven't heard much in the way of other ideas from anyone in the media. It is true that social security is headed for hard times, or at least it's likely to. The numbers the administration provides assume a ridiculously low level of growth, and they also stress that social security will be "solvent", which is quite simply a lie. Even using their own figures, SS would be able to pay out 70-80% of benefits it does now, in the year 2042.

I would like to answer his request, though. I have an excellent idea for fixing social security. It doesn't require raising taxes, you could phase in putting up to 1/3rd of it into private accounts, and you could *increase* benefits.

Interested yet?

Good, stay with me: Using this idea, you could even exempt extremely low income families from paying it, and have enough money to give them credits as if they had paid in, thus allowing them more disposeable income, and more of a chance to get ahead. You could make it to where people no longer have to work after they retire if all their income is derived from social security. And the best part is: Social security will never go solvent. Not in 2042, 2082, 2142, never so long as our entire economy doesn't go solvent.

So what is this utopian sounding idea? What massive overhaul will it require?

Simple: Eliminate the $90,000 wage cap on social security deductions, and count all income (excepting income derived from retirement accounts and tax free municipal bonds) toward those deductions (currently non-wage income is not counted, so retiers get off scott free). Working people generally make somewhere between 20-100k, so roughly all of their income at every level they are likely to earn in their life is taxed for social security. I'm currently paying social security on all the income I make, why not just make it a universally obligatory deduction? You could actually probably lower the percentage of the deduction (i.e. lowering taxes) just by making the rich non-exempt. Hell, just to make it fair, you could raise the retirement income requirements for recieving social security up to $250,000 a year, and still have alot left to work with.

So, in conclusion: Why the fuck hasn't a single Democrat mentioned this? Because they're fucking pathetic. That's why.

So much for the opposition.

The Handmaid And Rome

2005-02-10T16:12:00.000-08:00

Decided to publish this here on my blog, rather than seek publication for it. If anyone would still like to re-publish this article in a magazine or such, feel free to contact me.

We face a problem of epic proportions, caught between two forces which by their nature set upon each other and the fabric of society.

I am of course, talking about sex.

Or rather, the social tendencies of the politics of sex. Principally at the moment there are only two dominant paradigms at work and thus two extremes vying for supremacy: The forces of reaction, and the forces of commodity fetishism. The Handmaid and Nero.

Firstly I will describe the latter because it is newer to us, and less conceptually understood as a social paradigm. It starts in the aftermath of the various sexual liberation movements; Women’s, queer, and the more general sexual liberation movement at large. It must be noted that society has largely abandoned the further pursuit of any of these revolutions, with the exception of queer liberation.

However, from the outset queer lib has been primarily pursued by queers alone, and it is their singularly different nature, and therefore nature of revolution, that has forged their solidarity and continued their struggle.

The difference is this: That the character of the other revolutions was by nature reformist. That is; society already had a place for feminine, heterosexual, and familial roles. In contrast, while society now tentatively adopts the basic humanity of homosexuals, it still does not accept them as such, and harbors no role for them in its fabric.

The nature of women’s lib was more radical in aim than that of the general sexual revolution. The latter sought primarily to widen the dialogue concerning sex, and simply remove its semi-taboo nature, a tendency that was already in place and thus merely hastened. The women’s movement had more ambitious goals, and can only be said to have accomplished reformism while attempting more radical change –Full equality, parity, and the abolishment of patriarchy.

So one may ask, why did these revolutions fail? What went wrong?

Part of it can be blamed on the inevitable reactionaries, but they actually play a much smaller role than is usually suspected. Their opposition would be much less effective if not for an unfortunate side effect of the aforementioned liberation movements: The full capitalist commoditization of sexual identity.

This type of commoditization differs from previous types, such as arranged marriage, in a very significant way. It completely subsumes the sexual identity of women and men, straight and gay, adult and child. Previous commoditization fell under what might be called a “traditional economy” of sex; That is to say that social mores and custom dictated appropriateness, roles, and identity.

The new paradigm however, dictates fully that sexual identity shall be defined primarily by the degree and method in which it can be exploited for monetary gain. It is not yet at the point of fully legitimizing taboos such as prostitution and sexual abuse of children, but already the lines have been drawn thin. Such acts already create much capital for the legitimate economy through their notoriety. The media sensation, while serving at present to reinforce taboo’s also serves to desensitize us to them, and to profit from them.

Pornography plays a similar role, having gone mainstream, marketing a mythology of desirable sexual traits, habits, and endowments. Indeed it may yet prove to produce western society’s version of the ampallang –The shaved snatch.

Perhaps however, the most grievous act of this new zeitgeist is the selling and exploiting of sex and sexual identity to children. It is often not only explicitly and plainly presented, but is not only tolerated but fetishized.

Don’t believe me?

A few names come to mind: Lindsay Lohan, The Olsen Twins, TATU, and of course Britanny Spears; Who’s blatantly sexual smash singing career took off at age 16, and while her videos clearly are designed to entice men sexually, indeed likely much older men, her biggest buyers are overwhelmingly teen and pre-teen girls.

In fact, one may find calf-high leather boots, mini-tees imprinted with thinly veiled sub-sexual slogans, panties with the same, etc. in stores catering specifically to the 13 and under crowd. Their fashion is alighted with sultry letters proclaiming themselves “Bad Girls”, “Sexy”, “Hussy.” Even cartoons marketed to littler girls, such as Totally Spies, feature boy-obsessed, full-breasted, midriff-bearing, materialistic protagonists.

So to review, before women’s lib the social iconography of our society defined women in terms of what they could offer men: A good housewife, obedient, and a loving mother. Post lib, the woman is free to express herself…

…In sexual terms of how she can please men.

Our society has entirely confused the concept of sexual liberation with blatant exhibitionism. Yes women can now talk openly about sex, they can wear shorter skirts, flash in public without being lynched, wear thongs, shave their snatch, and even drunkenly snogg another straight girl for the collective amusement of an audience of men!

That is a change of fashion, not of condition.

And what of men? Are they victims too? Certainly, they are still fostered to treat women as less than full individuals, only now they are sexually “empowered” half-persons. Our iconography still cultivates a predatory sexual self-image in males, places lust before love, tits before a mind, a “slut” before a real person, and machismo before real gentlemen.

In effect the result has been to liberalize sex, and liberate no one, while adding to this, the wholesale exploitation of our desire and the death of intimacy. I define intimacy as the psycho-sexual rapport between equals, thus I’m not lamenting monogamy or “decency” (whatever that may mean), or too much else. I stand behind a person’s right to have as many or as few sexual partners as they like; to be risqué, kinky, queer, or what have you. But I demand that they have real connection with each other as un-coerced equals and that they don’t have a mass manufactured sexual identity.

Now let us turn to the opposing force of reactionaries. If left un-opposed and their aims allowed to follow to their inevitable conclusion, it would paint a picture not dissimilar from “The Handmaid’s Tale.” They too would exploit your individual and social sexual identity by keeping it wrapped in the chains of their ideology. Thus while one force says freedom is exhibitionism, the other says that freedom is slavery.

Both forces, allowed to continue robbing civilization of its Eros, lead to a basic denial of humanity and the re-conceptualization of people as chattel. It is to deny a portion of a person’s genuine self, thus enabling both lives and sexuality to become cheap.

What is required then is a new sexual revolution. The act of sex having gone from private life to private capital has made commodities of us all. We must stand fast against this, proclaiming our refusal to be diminished in such a manner. Let us reaffirm our commitment to true equality of the sexes, and to equality of sexual orientation, let us revolutionize our desire.

By fanning the fires of Eros, may we set alight the course of Civilization.

On the Philosophy of Poverty, and the Poverty of Philosophy

2005-02-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

Interesting long flamewar I had with a true believer in Laissez-faire the other day. Mostly shouting and insults, but some things struck me.

While I certainly do not believe capitalism is the end all to be all of economics, I certainly prefer it to some command economy based on a the insanity of a worker's party. I much prefer living in a bourgeoise democracy than a "communist" dictatorship. And it doesn't take a genius to realize both from seeing the results, to even reading cursory Marxist/Leninist theory, that they had their heads up their asses when it came to positing what should replace capitalism.

So for all true believers in laissez-faire a few notes for you:

1.) The closest we ever got to the system of laissez-faire (and it was pretty damn close, the closest you're ever likely to get in a real world circumstance), was England in the late 1700's to 1800's. And for the average working person it sucked shit through a straw because you got screwed daily, and if you put up any resistance, or tried to argue for better wages and/or working conditions, you got thrown into the massive army of the unemployed. These scenes are what caused Marx & Engles to write what they did in the first place. Roll a die with 1000+ sides, unless you rolled a 1, you were likely to be one of those people getting screwed. So much for your dreams eh?

2.) It can never happen again. The structure of mass corporate capitalism, investment and monetary capitalism, not to mention the state of international trade and development has not only surpassed the laissez-faire system, but pretty much made it impossible to impliment. Even if you could re-impliment it, it would not hold, because of the tendancy of competition to decrease and the tendancy of surplus to rise (which are still elements under our present system).

What do I mean by tendancy of competition to decrease? Well, lets take company A, which owns dominant share in market B. You start up company C, to compete with company A in market B. You both comprise the totality of this market, Each next player in this market, in order to successfully compete with either of you, requires more startup money than the last player, to successfully wrest a percentage of the market from Company A or B's grasp. This would happen even if you started from a position of perfect equality from the standpoint of the first players, with equal amounts of the market. Because each would invest to different amounts of return, and thus achieve different shares of a market, eventually dwindling out those who recieved the lowest returns. What happens in reality, is that eventually competition in a market reaches an equilibrium, where there is not too much, nor too little. This is the Coke Vs. Pepsi phenomena, smaller players are kept out of the game, by keeping competition low among the big players, thus limiting price competition and ensuring they both (or sometimes even more than two dominant players in a market) retain market dominance.

The standard reply to this criticism is what Shrumpter called "The Torrential Gale of Creative Destruction", or rather the ability of new technology to create new markets. However, even a cursory glance at the history of how this effects both class mobility, or the holdings of various major companies proves this false on the face of it. It's little more than a light breeze, and generally only upsets the larger players which are unable or unwilling to buy into the new technology, and they in turn get bought or mergered with the dominant players who do. This still in effect limits competition, and causes it to decrease and approach equilibrium. Even when you look at new startup companies in an existing market, they tend to have been started up by another large company seeking to enter into a new market, with the advantages of new technology, not by smaller players. Smaller players who enter into new markets tend to be bought up by larger players in existing markets. That's not to say that some don't survive this, and that old dinosaurs don't die off, but rather that they are the exception and not the rule.

Tendancy of surplus to rise refers to the surplus value of capitalist accumulation that cannot meaningfully be spent on goods and services, and can thus cannot be sufficiently absorbed by the economy. That is, if you make 10 billion dollars, in personal income, there's only so much you can spend on widgets, even luxury widgets, and as more and more of the economy becomes concentrated upward in this fashion, the more likely that economy is to become stagnant. Even when you consider that they can put this money into investment purposes rather than widgets, that only exascerbates the problem, as it causes the surplus to rise even more, by creating dominant returns on investment to those who allready hold large chunks of surplus capital. The ultimate effect, if not allowed to reach equilibrium, is a deflation of demand, and astronomically rising inequality.

3.) That I might use marxist analytical tools, does not mean I am a raving Marxist/Leninist. That Soviet Communism failed, that Marx was an idiot when he called for a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" or even that his works had limitations, do not discount some of the major contributions he made to examining the structures of economies and social structures.

4.) There are not only two alternatives on the plate here. There is not a dichotomy between Free Market Capitalism and Communism. The cold war is gone, get over it. There have been lots of different types of economies, and even ones that don't make economic "sense" still lasted thousands of years. Even laissez-faire could come back in the event of a total collapse of our current economic structure, (and what I meant by "it can't happen again" in the first place, was that you cannot work backward and impliment it), even traditional economies could make a comeback. The Soviet Union could have lasted 1,000 years despite being evil, corrupt, and stupid. It's not like the Roman Empire didn't fit those adjectives compared to our current understanding, and it's not like the Greeks weren't highly enlightened, and blessed with the best society in comparison to their contemporaries, and their society still got beat out by the unenlightened and armed.

5.) You (as a laissez-faire true believer) suffer from the same thinking that makes die-hard Marxist/Leninists unbearable. You extrapolate single instances to apply to the whole, you believe in a "one true way", and you ignore what the results of your ideology would be to the suffering milions, followed to their logical conclusions. Another point which makes you both mirror images and unbearable: anything less than total obediance to your ideology is "tyranny".

Concluded for now, until I feel the need to rant about it again.

EDIT:

Oh, and one other thing, what do I believe will replace our current form of capitalism? Who the fuck knows.

What I do believe, assuming the human race survives to see it, is that you will eventually see the destruction of economics as we know it, by technology which allows for cheap ubiquitos energy, and cheap ubiquitos churning out of widgets with, cheap ability to produce both technologies. Such a point will make scarcity obsolete, and thus make capitalism more or less irrelevent, but also the traditional ideas of communism and socialism as well. The caveats to this are: That capitalist, statist, or other types of ownership of this technology must be entirely disallowed, and that we must actually structure our economy to become obsolete in order to adequately pursue this, and finally: that we must not kill eachother off in the process.

It may very well be our current form of capitalism that produces this, or something that comes out of a General Protective Liscense. It may take 1,000+ years, and 30 more types of economies to produce this.

It may also never happen.

Its the last one I'm worried about most.

In other news, I'm pissed.

2005-02-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

Specifically, I'm pissed off that people actually believe the media fueled drivel concerning politics. I even dislike using the term "Progressive" and "Conservative" in the previous post. Why?

Because they're fucking meaningless terms.

What is a progressive? What is a conservative? Sure, when we think of politicians we can easily identify the ones that describe themselves as such through their rhetoric. But that's primarily due to succinct psychological pandering. At least with, "Capitalist", or "Socialist" or "Religious Fundamentalist" I know what the fuck you're talking about.

But conservative? You can't say that conservatives are defined by: Family Values (what, non-conservatives don't have families, and don't have values thereof?), or Small Government (Anyone looked at the deficits of the last two conservative presidents?), or Free Market (rampant protectionism), etc. etc.

Liberal? What the fuck's that, Clinton cut welfare funds, signed NAFTA, campaigned on a fucking "Third Way" platform for fucks sake.

And the people who BELIEVE all of this crap.....my fucking God....I...

I just want to stab them in the face repeatedly with a poorly sharpened #2 Pencil.

For of the love of fuck, if you get all of your political news from your favorite right wing talk radio show, or Michael Moore, or from watching talking heads bitch at eachother on TV, please...finish the job and just fucking lobotomize yourself. And FUCK YOU IN THE EYE for voting you stupid shits. You don't deserve to meaningly participate in a naptime discussion in kindergarten, much less anything resembling self-government, you dimwitted fecal brained jargon pails.

And I swear to Allmighty Bob the next time I hear someone say "Red State" or "Blue State" or "Compassionate Conservative" or "Tax and Spend Liberal" or whatever other little fucking "clever" buzzword you swallowed from your souless kleptocratic overlords, I will soddomize your fucking eyesockets.

---The Non Mechanical Man.

How the Progressives can win next election, and not even feel that bad about voting for Democrats.

2005-02-09T06:04:00.000-08:00

When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive;... when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.

--Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, are you burnt out and depressed about the Bush win?

Sad that bigotry won the presidency?

Think we're all doomed?

That the whole Democratic party is just as bad, and a bunch of spineless weasles to boot?

Don't fret, I have a surefire solution. A counter-zeitgeist for the anti-gay agenda and pure banality that won the last election: A Constitutional Ammendment Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage.

This is not only a surefire win for the democrats, if they adopted it as their platform, it's a surefire win for everyone who's fed up with them. Quite certainly going more rightward hasn't won them anymore elections, because even republicans don't want republican light. Fuck, Kerry's platform was more or less "Same Flavor, half the carbs."

So, this a really sneaky, and guaranteed to be successful way to inject progressive ideals back into the mainstream dialogue. Don't worry about a "Republican New Deal", they can't offer it. Honestly the only reasons the democrats can actually offer another "New Deal" is because they still have members that don't totally bend over to their large financing interests.

So, why is this a sure win?

One, because the Republican party can't come up with anything better. Which would you vote for if you were those reclusive undecided voters: Privatizing Social Security? Or... A constitutional right to a job at a wage you can live off of? Considering that 1 in 4 Americans falls below the ridiculously low federal poverty guidelines for their household, that's 1 in 4 Americans who're likely to vote their goddamn economic self-interest. "Gee, should I vote for privatizing social security and slashing social programs, all to benefit growth for the kleptocrats.... or should I vote for the immediate pay raise?" You figure that one out.

But wait, it gets better...

Two, A 2001 poll showed that 8 in 10 Americans support creating temporary government work programs for the unemployed. That's 82% of Republicans, 90% of Democrats, and 83% of Independants.

Three, A right to a job at a living wage cuts across both Progressive, and Conservative ethic. Thus the great neo-con fear: that someone would appeal to the inherent populism and nativism of the old-right, to take it to its actual logical conclusion --shafting the kleptocrats. Consider this, conservatives are allways those bitching about people on welfare not working and all of that bullshit, right? So, we as a nation put a high value on work, conservatives perhaps more so. But, 7 out of 10 poor people in our country actually work for a living. So successful has this political distraction been, that while we've moved millions off of welfare rolls, we've done nothing to actually improve wage conditions. And with wages falling across the board, for those who actually work for a living, (as opposed to those living off of rents and interest), along with jobs getting sent overseas, the time is now right to awaken that sleeping giant. Lets face it, you have to be nuts to politically oppose a guarantee that everyone whom is able to work shall have a job, and it shall be decent, and pay a wage you can live off.

Four, this is having your cake and eating it too. It's a progressive ideal, but also a staple of old-right populism, it appeals to the middle class, the lower class, the working class, the poor, the unemployed, the retired, pretty much everyone who isn't a CEO. You can vote your concience, because honestly, what better ticket is there at the moment that has a snowball's chance in hell of winning, and still vote for a party that will actually win. Sorry, hate to tell you, I love the Green Party, but It won't be next election, or the next 20, that they win a Presidency unless they stop running a national candidate and start pushing harder and harder into local candidates.

Five, This will get the momentum going. A giant, lambastic progressive win. People will forget the fucking New Deal, and instead be saying "Kids, when I was young, we pushed hard and got a guaranteed right to a job and and end to poverty, I wept when it happened."

Six, you'll be able to rub it in the faces of neo-conservatives and the DNC, and every other soulless bureaucrat for the next 20 elections.

So, in conclusion, while this is the cure to the Gay Marriage Ammendment, we must also take care that it doesn't end up like the Gay Marriage Ammendment, in the dustbin of History.

So, say "Fuck you, I won't vote for you." To your Congressman, unless they immidiately support this.

Hey, that's kind of catchy. I'm calling this the "Fuck you, I won't vote for you." Campaign.

For your free use.

2005-01-15T01:28:00.000-08:00

Here is the Proclamation in PDF format.

A Proclaimation and Call to Action

2005-01-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

In the course of great events, and times which try men's souls; It happens that a great nation may take enterpise on a course of great folly, which in itself sets it apart at the seams, and cleaves like a knife between its stated ideals and its actions. This is not new for any nation, least of all those who's stated ideals are beyond that of mere fickle of petty tyrants, but such endeavors may prove to forment much that is to be regretted, and may prove to impliment such tyranny at home or abroad.

This is such a time.

Wherever a nation's government cries patriotism and conquest in the name of liberty like a shrill banshee to glare up the ghosts of dread in men's bones, and yet takes action to hinder freedom and liberty in foreign lands and at home, it behooves an honest man to take cover.

Whatsoever that a government may lie and spread falsehood and fear and strike at the basest ignorance and ignobility in men's hearts to do harm unto others unknown to him, is unjust and injustice itself.

Even If it is true, that a foreign land is ruled by a strange and brutal tyrant, one must give pause to the designs of one's own government on that land should it be less than forthright in its reasonings to topple said tryant, and indeed it should always give reasonable men cause whenever their government should sound the trumpets of war.

Doubly so must it be, if said foreign government has never had a hand in taking a life nor liberty of you or your fellow countrymen.

It is a folly to lay reason down to rest when the hounds of war come baying, it is as worse than death to lay liberty in chains at the heeds of ignoble gentry, should they compel you to abandon it in the name of safety. One would be better suited to lay upon one's own sword, if blood must be spilled at such a cost.

It is in this specific instance, and in these specific times, which I must proclaim my utter protest. These are grievances which should brook no tresspass, but yet have, and I fear that no man shall stand against them if not me. Therefore I proclaim the following as self-evident transgressions against human rights and liberty, both domestic and foreign:

THAT the Government of the United States, should endeavor to make war upon the Soverign Nation of Iraq, lay callamity upon its peoples and lead our own people and the heads of other nations into concert with said undertaking under: False, misleading, distorted, deluded, and beguiling claims reguarding the nature of threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his regime.

THAT the Government of the United States, would use the People's fear in the wake of the tragedy that is and was 9/11 for opportunistic aims; both to curtail domestic liberties and for marshalling foreign conquest, the reasons for which can be stated no other than thus: To secure the natural resources and common property of the Nation of Iraq.

THAT the Government of the United States, would move to cover up and lay not a single ounce of blame for a slew of errors and failings at the hands of those responsible for ensuring domestic security, in the course of events which would culminate in 9/11.

THAT the Government of the United States, would fail to address the greivances of the people in the wake of two public elections riddled with failure, fraud, and indecent procedure.

THAT the Government of the United States, would, through its misleading of foreign Heads of State sour the name of the People which it represents, in the wake of the great outpouring of sympathy and profferings of aid during our time of great tragedy.

THAT the Government of the United States, would continue to occupy the People of Iraq, and spread false information about the nature of the Civil War that the Nation of Iraq is now in.

THAT the Government of the United States, would continue to hold our Nation's Sons and Daughters between civil strife in a foreign land which our government had helped to create, spilling their blood under the onus of lies.

THAT the Government of the United States, would having sent our Nation's Sons and Daughters to war, do so without proper manpower, equipment, security, nor supply, And then beseech them to stay an inordinate amount of time without returning to their native soil.

THAT the Government of the United States, would having sent our Nation's Sons and Daughters to war, forcibly require them to stay past their voluntary commitment, not having any noble way to compel men to fight.

IN THE EXECUTION OF THESE TRANSGRESSIONS: It is with great anger and righteousness that I must lay blame at the whole feet of the Government of the United States. It is with great Irony that King George was fought and severed from our country for less than this, but that President George would fail to recieve even the lightest compareable treatment from our so-called opposition party. The failure to redress these grievances, among many other grevious deceptions and blatant bullying on the part of the government, shall have the effect of depriving the civil body of all confidence in its democratic institutions, or worse: It shall lay the path for the machinations of a politiburo to construct a Tyranny and place our liberty in chains.

Should these grievances not be addressed, there will be sown greater seeds of discontent, and in the minds of the people foster cynicism, and in their hearts plant rebellion.

Thus being forewarned, we ourselves shall become forearmed.

Concordia res parvae crescunt
Small things grow great by Concord.

A Citizen,
Jan. 7th 2005

(This Work May Be Pamphletted Freely and Prodigously. If any Journals or Papers wish to publish this, I should thank them that they contact me first.)

Blogs: The Politics and Journalism of Attatchment

2005-01-05T06:32:00.000-08:00

Rough Draft: No Particular Format.

It's chic today to refer to blogs as a new media paradigm, the "blogosphere" is the current noxious buzz-word for it. Of course, primarily they're referring to politically oriented blogs, which serve to gather stories and like-minded political constituents into linking havens of homogeny. But also, in at least a few cases of people being none-too-discreet with their personal online blogs and internet activities, sometimes it happens that the private lives of individuals on the web get swepped up into the morass (Alan Keyes daughter is one example). Blogs indeed have quite a bit of social power, judging by the amount of time some people spend on them, and also by the fact that some people actually make a living from their blog. (Indeed, I'm using this blog as an opportunity to learn and improve my writing skills as to better my own opportunities.)

But with all this excitement, all this hype, I'd like to offer a simple caveat emptor. Blogs are inherently a progeny of Journalism of Attatchment (as opposed to "detatched reporting"), this is not a bad thing in and of itself. It simply means that they are by their nature partisan. They function as collective or individual filters of news, politics, oppinions, cultural, and socio-economic issues through an ideological lense. Even if a blog simply functioned as a news-wire, there exists the filter of "What do I/we Consider News?"

Of course, its not as if that hasn't been the case before blogs, quite the contrary. It's simply subtly and complexly different.

Blogs aren't Accountable

While that unfortunately resembles CBS' crappy appologeticism it also happens to be true. Because they are not accountable it means they are under no particular obligation to fact check or even report honestly. The objection to this is of course that the credibility of said blog is at stake should it not, but that belies the fact that political blogs primarily serve ideological functions, not news functions. That is to say, while it may lose some credibility among those visiting who are non-attatched to its ideology, it would not necissarily stir ideological diehards. The beliefs can be "wrong" and still hold a strong bond which promotes a defensive wall of disbelief of contrary evidence. Which brings us to my next point...

Blogs are Ideology First, News Second

This is probably the most important warning I have, blogs also serve to filter ideological homogeny among groups. Even I myself, am more likely to partake in a blog like DailyKos than I am to LittleGreenFootballs. That is, you're most likely going to participate in Blogs that allready mesh with your current perspectives, and most of the people there are going to echo those perspectives. And indeed, since anecdotally I have noticed that those that do not echo those same perspectives often instead seek to antagonize people on said blog, through name-calling or trolling, or whatnot; it serves to reinforce polarizing mentality. It is not bad to seek out people with similar ideas and perspectives, this can create social cohesion and solidarity, however it is important to be aware that these sites are built with pursuing a particular agenda, and its important to know you're actively participating in it. Remember: Wisdom is when you have ideas, Ideology is when Ideas have you.

Blogs and faux ami's

Since blogs are probably the ultimate merging of media and the populist expression of attatchment journalism since the collapse of the socio-political importance of the ye olde tavern, and ye olde townhall, and ye olde pamphlet it also means they are ripe pickings for false legitimacy. Grass roots groups are now often inundated with astro-turf groups, made by pro-government plants, industry plants, groups of one ideology masquerading as another, etc. Expect the same thing from Blogs. In fact, expect it now not in the future. PR and psychological operations is an increadibly fast and opportunistic field. If you find members of government, industry, etc. which direct you to specific blogs or "Fact-sites" you should be immediately skeptical. That does not neccisarily mean that those sites even contain false information, but you should also be immediately skeptical of why they might want to direct your attention there. As an example, I saw recently a member of the Bush government (I forget specifically which) tell a media representative that there's lots of support for American troops from the Iraqi people, and directed him to a blog of an Iraqi. What was left unsaid is that he was not telling the media rep to do this, he was telling the public that they could find his message reinforced at that particular blog. Also left unsaid was that this was two Iraqi Americans from Texas, and that their views are well in the minority, as compared to most Iraqi's. Its not necissary that even the website be faked, only that pertinant information be left out.

Blogs, Possibilities and Limitations

There is a great multitude of pleasant possibilites from blogs and grass-roots independant media, it can enliven the populace to new political awareness, and even unite disparate groups across the world, shattering their alienation and making it known that they are not alone. It can also serve as blatant engines of smear, hate, and demonization. Just think of anyone you've known that has had a really nieve and stupid or prejudiced oppinion on an issue ("We should just nuke 'em all." "All those niggers are lazy." "They come here and steal all of our jobs.") and think about those people consolidating their power into an ideologically re-affirming continuous stream of information. Soon they go from simple ignorant explainations to neigh religious proclaimation.

So in conclusion: Remember, your beliefs will always contain some element of falsehood, some element where they do not apply, and you should allways be aware of this. Because if you are, you'll be able to expand your mind, rather than turn it into a steel trap, from which none of your prejudices will ever escape, and which no light of reason can penetrate. Have fun, and happy surfing.

~Fin

A concept of money

2004-12-22T08:22:00.000-08:00

I just recently had a novel idea about money. I have little knowledge of what the actual effects of this kind of money would be, but I thought of it in the shower, and believed it interesting none the less.

Quintessentially money would be divided into several types of credits, all valuated at roughly the same transferrable amounts, but useful for different purposes. Wages would be paid in 3 tiers:

These are called "Buy credits", firstly roughly a third of buy credits would have an expiration date of say 3-6 months, this represents disposable or rapidly spent consumption, usually on staple goods or consumer commodities. Second tier buy credits would have an expiration date of 5 to ten years, this representing more long term spending and short term investment. The third would be money given without an expiration date (when exchanged however, it turns into money with expiration dates), this money is in a type of account used for loans to government or private investment, and thus this account would develop interest at a stable rate. This means a certain portion of everyone's wage goes directly to their retirement. This all works on the assumption that people are less likely to rapidly spend money that expires less rapidly.

Expired money turns into "Demand Credits" demand credits can be spent in the following ways: They turn into a direct credit rating to the consumer, allowing them to borrow up to the amount let expired. Secondly, they can be exchanged for "Staple Credits" which would work much like food stamps do now. Thirdly they could be used to stimulate demand into new technologies or new products, that is those not yet in the consumer field, by having them transfered to producers in the form of (on their end) as "Development credits". This gives producers the knowledge directly of what consumers want by reversing the advertisement process essentially. The other type of credit would be a "Producer Credit" used directly in line with buy credits, at the production end.

In my conceptual theory, this would essentially mean large portions of money would turn into development credits, and thus technological growth, actual consumptual demand would fall or stabilize to sustainable levels.

How all of this would work out in actuality, I have no idea. Any comments, criticism, or any insights from real economicists would be appreciated.

As another note: This money would likely not be "printed" in the traditional sense, but would rather work like an ATM.

Small exposition of my political thoughts and leanings

2004-12-14T01:04:00.000-08:00

Just decided I might elucidate for the world, as at least a disclaimer, some of my current leanings and thoughts on the nature of politics, religion, life, the universe, everything.

I believe it is a mistake to qualify myself into strict labels, both because I think labels are largely meaningless and misleading, and because I think you stultify your own mind once you define yourself as a "conservative" or "liberal" or what-have-you. But, I will give near an estimate toward describing my thoughts, to the categories people are mostly familiar with pigeonholing others into.

I suppose, firstly I'll start with religion. I myself, am entirely non-inclined to believe in any diety or form of diety. That is, not only do I see no evidence, and think it highly unlikely, I don't believe any human conception of a diety would even be able to come close to approaching the concept of god or creator. That is, I think religion is bunk. Bunk with a seriously powerful social effect (For good or ill), but bunk none the less. That being said, the closest idea that I can approach with a semi-religious ardor would be the concept of Freedom (and secondarily, liberty, which is a slightly different concept.) Toward that end, assuming that a god or creator does exist (which I presume unlikely), I would be inclined to liken it to Nietzsche's concept of God: "Companions the creator seeks, not herds, nor followers, nor corpses, other creators the creator seeks." Or perhaps, on a more cynical note, H.P. Lovecraft. But, primarily I would agree with Bakunin's rebuttle to Voltaire: "If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." That is, the mental concept of some allknowing, allpowerful, omnipresent thing should set any intelligent mind alight with revulsion and defiance. Beyond that, it seems entirely tiresome to me, that people would accept the ideas of others, concerning the unknowable, moreso than their own thoughts, and would actively exclude, deride, or persecute those who do exercise their own thoughts.

That is, the first evil, which would become the state, found its prototype in the priest. The state merely defines those outside of civility, the priest decides who is indeed, outside of even humanity. "We the great religions, shall all feast on eachother's heathens." Which is still the truth, despite the rosy colorizations that seemingly every world religion gets by whatever press or public oppinion these days. That one religion might be behaving mostly civily for the time being, means merely that it is resting, it's stomach satiated for the time being, by the blood of martyrs or heathens past.

So, now that my tirade against religion is complete: On to my philosophy of life. I tend to stick to simple axioms, or aphorisms, and shy away from complex ontologies, dialectics, or other metaphysical classifications. So it roughly follows as such: Break every chain, use your mind, exercise compassion, refrain from harming others, and sic semper tyrannus.

Fairly short and simple philosophy, I think that life, having no inherent meaning allows you to define your own meanings, and so in order to avoid dogmatism or limitations, I choose a few good baselines, and devise situational ethics based off of those for the rest. Most of my ethical theory revolves around Aristotle's mean, and a variation on Kant's: In your actions, presuppose that the entire world would allready know what you had done. (Tip: The latter one will drive you nuts if you use it too often.) And also Nietzsche's concept of personal virtue.

Next: Politics. In this matter I suppose people would generally consider me "Left", and the best theoretical model which approaches my own is anarcho-syndicalism, or libertarian-socialism. Though I differ fundamentally in several aspects. Mainly on my own mental wrangling about practicality (that is, the practicalities of ensuring maximum freedom.) As far as the socialism aspect, I suppose that I endorse some sort of mixed economy socialism, devoid of parasitical ownership. Until a time where something such as universal construction nano-technology or cheap clean ubiquitous energy, makes even commodity disparity between various peoples obsolete there will allways be some relative inequality. The importance however, lies in the minimalization of this equality, the dissolution of structural inequality of class, and the destruction of inequality of the type which deserves no other word than horrendous. That is, one where not even the necessities of life can be met. That is, I can be fine with relatively small amounts of "floating" inequality, due to production or distribution circumstance, or simply a historical edge (which of course, should be eliminated, but even should it be so, there is likely to remain for at least a relative amount of time, some small degree of historical economic "edge".), but cannot stomach large inequitable disparities based on the illogic of our system as currently constituted. That being said, I propose no specific system (as of yet), and endorse no burocracies, politburo's, or other pretenders. Some of my positions on social and personal issues would fall right in line with the american right-libertarian philosophy (For instance: Guns), so I decline to be categorically trampled into some idiotic category such as "liberal" or "leftist".

That's enough for now,

Laters folks.

More updaty goodness, plus maybe some political stuff

2004-12-06T03:21:00.000-08:00

Currently reading much political economy, including Shumpter's "Capitalism, Socialism, And Democracy," And Paul Baran and Sweezy's "Monopoly Capital." I've been working quite alot, though I may take up a secondary job, in some form of commission based sales, to test my mettle in those matters.

Beyond that not too much is up with me. I have been contemplating the role of partial monopolistic economies (oliopolic capital), non-price competition, and the nature of transnational corporate power. All anecdotal evidence and deductions I've made seem to reaffirm my notion of the decline of the nation state, and though allready quite dead, the further decline of what Marx referred to as the "petty bourgeoise", or small business owner. Or rather, I believe should I look (which I have yet to have the opportunity to do), I would find that the majority of small businesses are in fact brand-franchises, and thus simply ancillory extensions of big business. (Or, if not allready established in fact, the fastest growing portion of small businesses, however, this fact seems apparent enough on its surface.) While this would on its face, in rhetoric, seem to promote the idea that big business is in fact "sharing the wealth" by extending its functions to decentralized independantly owned franchises. However, the simple economic fact of the matter is anything but, small businesses only make up approximately 5% of the total GNP, despite being many times more numerous than large businesses. However, the franchising aspect has in its systemic design the end effect of further merging the interests of the petty-bourgoise franchise owner, with oliopolistic provider. Thus, this will serve the long term effect of making them an arm of the managerial class, while also merging direct small ownership. This trend is reinforced by the primary mechanism of competition among corporations which are integrated into the state of oliopolistic capitalism: Brand competition. The power of branding to draw demand, often reguardless of relative quality or price, puts a significant power leverage of the branded "independant" franchise, vs. the non-branded petty-bourgoise. Beyond that, the control, especially in reguards to competition with other firms cements power further in the hands of the supplier corporation, rather than the franchise owner. To illustrate, in order to expand his franchise, (which is often a liscense to operate in a specific territory, of a specified range and market share), the owner must meet goals established by the parent corporation, and directed down to him, he must also obey non-competition rules, with reguards to products owned or produced, branded, or liscensed by the parent corporation. This helps control pricing of comparitive substitutional goods, and also controls market prices of the same goods within a relative close area, by preventing providers of the same goods (two franchise owners of the same franchise) from competing with eachother. This structure allows as well for a shifting of costs of operations (and success or failure in a given market, locale, or other classification) to another party, meaning that the parent corporation is mainly responsible for distribution, product branding or creation (often products are not created by the parent corporation, merely rebranded in their image), and national advertising or "brand creation".

Thus it follows that localized non-franchised stores will inevitably lose out, in the long run, (or else be bought out and supplanted), by national and international oliopolistic brand stores. They simply have no relative competitional ability, the branded store is able often to draw in customers without even offering a comparitve price or quality advantage, but merely the perception of higher quality or lower price. Wallmart is a prime example of this, though not a franchise corporation (but rather one composed more along the lines of traditional managerial class structure), it has successfully branded itself as offering lower prices than the competition, while in reality on most household goods (discounting "loss-leaders"), it does not have lower prices (a study found that on 15 different common household items, Wallmart had lower prices on only 1 item). Or, it can substantially lower prices at outset, at or well below cost, and bleed the local competition to death, and simply supplant them. Between however, two or more significantly large competing corporations, this tactic is not used. Firstly, among larger corporations the main competition element would be advertising, and product differentiation (thus creating the perception in the public mind, that equivilent substitution goods are effectively not substitutions), if however there are more than two large competitors, as soon as at least one competitor has a significant market share many times in excess of its least competitor, it will engage in price competition. Otherwise it will not, in order to avoid a price war, in fact, even under conditions of relatively equal market share among large competitors, even brand competition may be kept to more minimal levels to avoid "brand-waring", if it would create openings for smaller competitors to climb up the latter. (A clear example of this, is coke vs. pepsi, which while they compete, keep their competition levels in the U.S. at least, to minimal amounts, and often push different variations of their products at the same time, to keep smaller beverage companies from getting a larger share of the beverage industry.)

Now to relate to my facet about the continuing decline of the nation state, in terms of anything but symbolic power. Firstly its spelled out in the fact that over 2/3's of international trade is now carried out not by nations, but by Trans-National Corporations (hereafter referred to as "TNC's"). Secondly, its spelled out by the actual purchasing and asset power of certain extremely prominent corporations, which utterly dwarfs the GNP of entire nations, and often groups of nations. To put the matter succinctly: The world's richest 16 people have more assets and income than the entire GDP of the continent of Africa. Also the ratio of inequality both among persons within any given economy (as a rising trend), but also the rising rates of inequality of between the richest and poorest nations. During the time of British colonialism, the ratio was only around (depending on what precise period) 3 to 1, or 5 to 1. Now it can be represented in quadrouple digits. This trend is only likely to increase, because the structure of international trade relations is (of course) geared both in quality, quantity, and profitability toward those nations with allready high development standards and high relative GDP. (The most blantant illustration of this oliarchial dollar-voting system is written into the structure of the World Trade Organization, where vote is decided by a country's GDP. Thus ensuring in written fact, the object lesson of bourgoise democracies around the world: That the rich inevitably have more political power and rights than the poor, so in the arena of international trade, which public attention is historically absent minded about, it isn't necissary to dispense many illusions to the contrary.)

On the surface, this last point might seem to support an idea contrary to my premise: that rich nation states will increase in power, given the structure of international trade, rather than corporations. Except this ignores certain political factors: Namely that in democratic countries, electoral candidates largely depend on political investments (euphamistically called "donations") from large corporations, as such that the functioning of large business interests, and the government become relatively indistinguishable. (Consider the fact, that the massive nature of these corporations, and the sophistication and efficiency of their propoganda machines, and their ability to centrally plan their development [and indeed the development and shape of entire sections of economic, political, and social life], would put the former Soviet Union, or the PRC to shame.) And that most auto-cratic countries are (if they have no centrally critical resources: like oil) more or less supplicant to the pressures of international corporations, if they want any significant development. They are also, in either case (meaning: critical resource or not), relatively easy to bribe, (more so than democratic countries, in the naked sense, although in democratic countries the bribing is simply instutionalized in the form of pressure groups, "donations" and policy think-tanks.)

Also, most tellingly, as Marx described one of the most blantant contradictions of early bourgeoise democracy, in specific reference to the French constitution adopted in 1848: "The most comprehensive contradiction of this constitution consisted in the following: the classes whose social slavery the constitution is to perpetuate, the proletariat, peasants, petty bourgeois, it puts in possession of political power through universal suffrage. And from the class whose old social power it sanctions, the bourgeoise, it withdraws the political guarantees of this power. It forces its rule into democratic conditions, which at every point help the hostile classes to victory and jeapordize the very foundations of bourgeoise society." (The Class Struggles in France: 1848-1850" International Publishers Edition, New York, 1934, pp. 69-70) While it can easily be argued that Marx was short sighted in this estimate (underestimating political apathy, and the forces of deception and disenfranchisement, not to mention social disintigration), it provides a telling backdrop for the arena of international trade. Namely, that the structure of international trade which is geared toward providing rich nation-states with increasing power also contains the seeds of the demise of their own power: Namely, it gives even more power to "their" companies (which may at any time, effectively leave "their" country, if the business environment should ever become undesireable, in that a corporation has no specific nationality, and their often international shareholders need not either), which accomplish the tasks it seeks to gain from such wrangling. (the nation-state currently serves the function of being the enforcing arm of violence in these arrangements, although its questionable whether it will retain that title forever.) Secondly: It gives them the right to sue sovereign nations, thus establishing them in legal fact as immortal soverign entities in their own right. To put it bluntly, most nations do not even allow their own citizens to sue the government (and even in those which do, not in this way, nor with as much concieveable chance of success). Thus this, along with their increasing economic performance as entities unto themselves, their nebulous nature, and global reach, spell the seeds of the demise of the nation-state as an effective embodiment of "real" power.

More on all this later

Personal Update

2004-10-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

I'm Employed! I'm working for hyatt, and my first real day (aside from Orientation, which doesn't count) is tomorrow, at 6:30 Am. I haven't been updating in a little while, because I've not had too much to comment on, that should change now that I've got less time on my hands. Bizzarely enough, I write more when employed than unemployed and broke. I am working conceptually on ideas pertaining to social networks. I might try writing for extra-pay, sometime soon. Also, I'm going to try and learn perl, so if anyone has books, files, or other materials on learning perl, please do foreward them to me.

Note to self: Next post

2004-09-04T03:28:00.000-07:00

Next post: Ideological fallacies of orthodox libertarianism.

To be completed at a later date.

A twin postulate.

2004-09-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

Non empirical postulate: That the more pervasive networks become, in accordance to Reed's and Metcalfe's Law, the greater likelihood the outcome of one of either of two emergent social extremes, which both accomplish the end of government as anything we would recognize today. These extremes are:

1.) Totalitarian Panopticon; the pervasity of the networks, and their very core architecture is designed for the purpose of correlating and centralizing data about every moving participant in society and each action they take, and for restricting their end uses of the networks, for the purpose of hierarchial control on a level never imagined before.

2.) Fractal Social Autonomy; the pervasity of the networks, and their very core architecture is designed to prevent outside data correlation, control, or unwanted access, and leaving the function of the networks themselves free for exponential function creep by users themselves; thus making governmental/hierarchial function as it currently operates completely impossible as power is shifted firmly in the hands of the individual actors of society themselves, and the puffer-train like ad-hocracies, and anarchic groups they form.

Theoretical Evidences for each case in point:

Case #1: If the architecture which becomes pervasive is concentrated as the sole properties of any specific group, individual, or other hierarchial authority, in accordance to Reed's and Metcalf's Law: As the power of the networks expand (both by squares, and exponentially) the power of the authority which owns it increases at a like rate, both squared (in the sense of each physical network) and exponentially (in the sense of their power over the actors in every network).

Case #2: If the architecture which becomes pervasive is instead held in commons, and the structure of it is specifically designed to resist intrusion into the commons, and contains essentially elements of aggregate enforcement of tresspass on the commons (i.e., free-riding), then the power of individuals and end-to-end or peer-to-peer social networks increases both squared and exponentially, at the expense of existing hierarchial authority.

Projects

2004-08-25T01:37:00.000-07:00

Well, project one is to get myself gainfully employed, but after that I have a few social projects I could use some help on:

Project #1: The Open Source Individual Education Project
Description: To provide quality open-source (for individual, or homeschool use) educational materials for homeschooled and unschooled students. The benefit for the student would be a higher quality of educational content, and the benefit for the writers/educators would be greater control over their work, plus the ability to tackle more complex/contraversial subjects than are normally allowed in textbooks. Opportunity for profit would still be available, as my current plans call for publishing printed materials for sale (Free materials available for individual use, as a PDF or similar file), and for liscensing for educational institutions at lower cost than most standard educational publications. I plan to try and pass on up to 70-80% of the profits made selling printed materials and liscenses, directly to the authors themselves, If I can.

The company will be ran as a non-profit company, preferably a co-op, or similar arrangement.

If you are interested, you may e-mail me, or mail me. I'll add more projects as I go on.

Current Books

2004-08-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

Reading
Parecon: Life After Capitalism, by Michael Albert
The Only Math Book You'll Ever Need, By Stanley Kogelman, Ph.D. and Barbara R. Heller, M.A.
Allways a Warrior: Memoirs of a Six-War Soldier, By Charles W. Sasser
Economics: Twelfth Edition, By Paul A. Samuelson & William D. Nordhaus
Self-governing Socialism, vol. 2, edited by: Branko Horvat, Mihailo Markovic, & Rudi Supek
War Without End: The Rise of Islamist Terrorism and the Global Response, By Dilip Hiro

Just Finished
The Lucifer Principal: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, by Howard K. Bloom
Closing Time, by Joseph Heller
And I think maybe one other, but I can't remember it

I'm about 1/2 way through Allways a Warrior & War Without End, about 1/4 of the way through Parecon, the Math Book, and Self-Governing Socialism. I'm only a few pages into the giant econ text.

Entry One

2004-08-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

This is a test post for my new blog. Primarily this blog will be used to get out my political/economical/philosophical thoughts, probably in the form of essays. Accept criticism on them, and chart my progress of learning.

I can be reached at: sol_of_d00mREMOVETHIS@yahoo.com