Existing Alternatives

Sleep training seems to be a controversial topic. Stefan did mention it a couple of times, but never in details. The episode mentioned above is probably as detailed as it ever got. There were a few threads here and on FB about it. Personally, I'm a strong co-sleeping proponent. To me, it is more effective, natural and more NAP -aligned.

Have you seen Ron Paul's Curriculum? Sounds very liberty-minded. I'm very new to Homeschooling, so I can't comment on quality.

A new batch is here! Get one for yourself, one for your significant other and another just in case!

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“Community” can’t be pro- or anti- anything, it is merely a group of people brought together by some commonality. Most people’s individual opinions here will probably sway against voting. Voting is generally considered an endorsement of the state. I am curious, how do you envision “putting into practice the things you learned” by voting? And how is using that time instead to improve yourself and your immediate surroundings and relationship being passive?

Best of luck! Having moved countries at about your age, I can attest it could be extremely difficult, especially at first. Having each other will help you quite a bit, but be prepared for sacrifices and potentially starting a bit lower in the social hierarchy than what someone with your credentials would expect. Personally, I stayed at a distance from my ethnic diaspora in my new country after the move. It may seem like a source of comfort at first, but it also may have a “crutch” effect. If I were to choose among your destinations, I would go with Australia. Singapore is a lot more economically advanced, but its population is primarily Chinese and biased towards Asian culture, which will create a disadvantage for you. It also has very high initial settlement costs. And it is always hot! New Zealand, while more freedom-oriented, is economically behind Australia, which may result in fewer opportunities. But either of those choices is fine.

Millennials are by definition young and just starting out in their respective productive paths. As such, there is nothing wrong with them having low (and even negative) savings. At the same time, the spending habits of today’s youth simply blow my mind. A young guy in my office (who makes just a fairly basic coin) just bought himself a pair of $500 headphones for his phone, because… the last year model is way out of date. But this could be just me complaining about those young kids and their loud hippity-hop music…

Yes, the absence of the labels is unfortunate. The data is per riding (electoral district), each bar represents a riding. The length of the bars is % of households that are married or common-law in that riding. The colour represents the party that carried that riding in this election: blue – Conservative, red – Liberal, orange – NDP. It is not very clear, what this election means. The new Liberal prime minister is young inexperienced son of a former prime minister, so he will do anything to prove that he can fill his dad’s shoes. Furthermore, they replaced a Conservative government, which, for better or worse, kept the economy in check. Liberals also gained a majority in parliament, which means they pretty much push any legislation right through. Also, he promised to legalize marijuana “right away.” So, there is that… Good idea. Will do.

I know nobody cares about Canadian politics, but here is an interesting piece of statistics that resonated with me. According to CBC (Canadian government TV station), “The Conservatives appealed to ridings in which the proportion of married or common-law couples was highest. By comparison, the Liberals and the NDP largely dominated in ridings where the marriage rate hovered below 50 per cent.” In Canada, Conservative (blue) tends to be, well, conservative, Liberal (red) – liberal, and NDP (orange) – even further left-wing. So, to me, this appears to be a clear R vs. K battle (married people lean conservative and non - liberal), presented in a very beautiful chart.

I was listening to an old podcast about “how would we deal with … in the free society”, and then, this piece of news pops up (i.e. “we deal with theft so well now”)… http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/crown-suggests-four-year-prison-sentence-for-ex-quebec-vice-regal-thibault/article24567724/ Basically, this person pleaded guilty to defrauding government of $430K. But… she is a former Quebec lieutenant-governor (sort of like an appointed state governor). So, her punishment will likely be 12 mons of community service and have to repay $372K (no word on the $58K difference) with $272K coming from her foundation for disabled. Basically, they are going to force a bunch of handicapped people to pay for her theft. Figures.

Boom! I wish my arrival at anarchy was as simple and logical as that! But yes, anarchy, or, in this case, free market is the answer! If Takata created a product that is harmful to their own customers, it will be in Takata's best interest to recall the product. If not, customers that are having bad experience with their product will quickly switch to whomever their competition happens to be. The regulator's framework of the recall is unlikely to be best aligned for the company - customer relationship, and hence is resisted by Takata. Nobody likes being told what to do.

I have a number of Venezuelan friends who fled all this nonsense. Although, they all believe that Chavez either “went a little too far” or “did not do it the right way”, but ultimately, he was on the right track. “Oil wealth should be shared with all people” “He really helped the poor” “Do you know the kind of margins these stores are making?!?”

Ultimately, Stefan does what Stefan does. I am sure he is hugely inefficient, but so are most humans. FDR tries to put out as much content as they can with limited resources and a skeleton crew. It seems to be relevant to a certain segment of population that directly keeps him in business. We already have one Tom Woods, why would we need another? On a personal note, I used to hate call-in shows and just skipped them as they queued up on my podcast player. But lately, I realised that I care less about Stefan’s opinion on California drought, but much more about some real guy’s real issues with his kids or parents and understand how he (or she) is resolving them and what I can learn from that to make my life and my relationship better and freer. And that is what is important to me. There is nothing wrong with providing constructive criticism. If you think that the “talking head against gray background” does not work (provided you know what you are talking about) let them know, I am sure they will take that under consideration.

I am still hoping for Ancapistan, or at least a "99% Solution." At the end of the day, I would rather play Youtopia in the US or Europe then in North Korea... Singapore does have a couple of natural advantages that they do seem to exploit to the fullest. It is situated on the busiest shipping route. It does have the highest concentration of Chinese population outside of China. It mixes well Chinese and English languages working well as the East-West link. They also focused heavily on the financial services, especially in contrast to their Islamic neighbours, becoming sort of a Switzerland of the East. And of course, there is plenty more heavy regulation there... Internet barely escaped being outlawed, but many sights are blocked, real estate and housing are dominated by the government, alcohol sales are restricted, online gambling is illegal, regular gambling is heavily regulated and is relatively new, pornography and nudity in general are illegal, not flushing toilet is also illegal (yes, police have the right to check), so is oral sex and homosexuality...

Ok, this bothered me for quite some time now. Singapore is considered by many a shining star of the economic freedom and some kind of a libertarian paradise. I did a bit of research on the country including a short fact-finding visit, and I am not impressed. Now all these news coming out about people being arrested for “disturbing harmony”: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32115052 But let’s ignore for a moment the fact that the country has been a family-run dictatorship for the last 50 years and focus on the economic freedoms. How easy it is for a poor immigrant to start a simple business? (Is there such a thing as a poor immigrant in Singapore? I don’t know.) Let’s say you want to open a small stand selling some chewing gum. Nope – fine and prison sentence. Become a cab driver? Well, in addition to the cost of the car you’d need to shell out for 20% of duty, 140%-180% of Additional Registration Fee (on the amount of over $20K in Open Market Value, which is determined by government, btw), $5K-20K in Emission surcharge, and don’t forget the Certificate of Entitlement, which can run as high as $100K. So, if you want to drive a $50K vehicle to serve customers, prepare to pay another $160K in taxes, and then some for licensing. What if you want to follow Ben Franklin’s footsteps and start a newspaper – don’t make me laugh, you’ll never pass the censure committee. If you get too depressed with all this, just don’t reach for the drugs – penalty for mere possession is… DEATH. Of course, if you are a billionaire social network founder or a multi-millionaire commodities investor – life is your oyster, but then, isn’t it everywhere? I think it's time for a Truth about Singapore episode...

According to Wikipedia, compulsory voting is well presented in the world. In addition to Australia, these bastions of democracy also have compulsory voting: Argentina, Brazil, Cyprus, Ecuador, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, North Korea, Nauru, Peru, Singapore, Uruguay. There are 20 more countries that have compulsory voting, but do not enforce it (not sure how that works). Canada is currently considering introducing compulsory voting as well. During a recent debate with some of my colleagues on the topic, this argument was given: "In democracy many things are compulsory like taxes, jury duty and conscription." So, there, the case is closed.

It wouldn't be prudent to spend all the time necessary to become an NBA player, if you are short, but it is not impossible... - Tyrone Bogues at 5'3" is the shortest NBA player - Jim Abbott was born without a right hand and played as a pitcher in MLB - Oscar Pistorius lost both of his legs and run in Olympics I don't know what the distribution of IQs among rocket scientists looks like, but I am sure it has a pretty long left tail... There is predisposition and then there is will.

Yet another example of someone who built a road... with nothing but a hammer and a chisel nonetheless... http://www.upworthy.com/they-told-him-it-was-impossible-it-took-him-a-hammer-a-chisel-and-22-years-to-prove-them-wrong?c=ufb1 https://www.youtube.com/embed/xAVUDKw4AIk

It's not. Here is what our friends at Wikipedia have to say...

We are not homeschoolers ourselves, but we do borrow from Ron Paul Curriculum to supplement what our son learns at school. The topics you propose sound very serious and complicated. What level of students would you target? I will also question my own abilities as a parent to teach such complex subjects at home. To make your product marketable you will really need to overcome parents' limitations, both real and perceived.

In a recent podcast Stefan mentioned that soldiers on the front lines were better off attacking, where they stood a chance of surviving (or die as heroes and earn their families honour and pensions), as opposed to retreating, where they would have more likely be shot by their own officers (and lose the honour and pension for their families). And it occurred to me that in the infantry (at least in the days of WWII) the soldiers would be armed with rifles, which were designed to be accurate at long distances, whereas the officers were armed with pistols, which are only somewhat accurate at short distances. Just thought this was interesting…

University of Cumbria is hosting a free online class titled Money and Society in February-March 2015. It promises to enable students to: Critically assess views on the form and function of money and currency by drawing from monetary theories Explain theories on how social, economic and environmental problems arise from mainstream monetary systems Explain alternative forms of money and currency and the theories on how they can support better social, economic and environmental outcomes. Sounds like good fun - check it out....

For the record, the original post was an interpretation by Examiner of Zerohedge’s interpretation of the proposed frameworks. Once again, interpretation of an interpretation. Neither of the interpreters are particularly objective, so here is your classic case of purposefully broken telephone. If you really want to know what was proposed and discussed at those meetings, go to the source. Ultimately, the proposal pertaining to the cash deposits came down to allocating additional capital to the deposits in a similar manner as it is currently allocated to higher risk assets, such as stocks on the banks’ balance sheets. It is supposed to make the banking system more resilient. Whether or not it will, I won’t comment, but it won’t do is “make deposits subject to decrease”. How in the world did the original article ever deduce that?

I heard Stefan speak at a Liberty Now event. I was very surprised that everyone in the audience knew who he was, so he did not even bother introducing himself. When I got home I googled him and found his podcasts and have not stopped listening yet. Joined the board a year later more as a supplement...

But you don’t have to follow NAP, it’s only a principle to help one evaluate one’s decisions and actions. And of course, you can question NAP – you just did (and you are not going to hell for doing so)!