Angrywoodchucksblog

In my 12 years now of studying Austrian economics, monetary policy and Libertarianism, reading Sowell, Mises, Hayek and listening to Molyneux, Schiff, Cernovich, Woods, Stapleton and CATO, to name a few...it all seems to come down to...does debt matter? We all know we had a gold standard. We left it. We started running massive amounts of debt, as have most other first world nations. This rocket fuel of debt has powered unlimited global warfare and an unlimited expansion of the social service welfare state which in turn has enslaved the States to the Federal Government through "free money" pay-to-play leftist totalitarianism upending what was left of State sovereignty, and allows vote buying on a megalithic scale for whichever side of the uniparty is handing out "free" stuff thus stacking the deck in favor of centralized command-and-control Leftist/Socialist micro-management with surveillance saturation of the body politic. No end in sight, all fueled with debt. We thought debt finally mattered in 2001, but it didn't. We thought it mattered in 2007, but it didn't. And when I say "it didn't" I mean that the bankers or whatever powers you want to attribute this to were able to cobble together a defensive strategy and prop our debt spending back up. It would seem that to repeat the same mistake three times suggests insanity, but they cannot all be insane, therefore it must be deliberate. If it is deliberate then they must know what they are doing is going to lead to a negative event as the same actions have done in the past, and if they know a negative event is inevitable then they must have a plan to deal with it (prop it up) again, or some other goal. Slight digression... In fact, if we were to choose between them being insane (or inept), or their actions being deliberate, which is preferable - an insane ruling class or a malevolent one? If they are insane, then the market should correct it eventually despite their best efforts as the market forces exceed their administrative forces. If they are malevolent, then everything since 2001 (and earlier) has been intentional, and so are the current bubbles, and for some reason the last two collapses were not large enough for their goal and so they have been intentionally priming the pump with leveraged collapse built upon leveraged collapse for their ultimate finale by creating ever escalating crashes until one of sufficient size permits them to cross the finish line of whatever race they are in. It must be one or the other, crazy (inept) or malevolent, no? Return to discussion... And whereas in history we could rely on the check and balance of someone somewhere not willing to play the game, even if out of greed, it seems that every power in the world that matters has agreed to collude in order to maintain this global cartel of control, with none willing to blink and grab the brass ring from the others which suggests that their is a ring more desirable than brass IF they all agree to work together. Otherwise, why work together at all? Why are they working together now? (Such unilateral collusion also suggests malevolent forces at work and not just insane/inept ones). So now we have surpassed home prices from 2006, student loan debt is at record highs with record default rates, and a wildly inflated stock market, and from what I have heard, a bond market as well. Does it matter? If the Powers were able to backstop the last two times the market attempted to correct for this massive imbalance, who is to say they cannot do it a third, fourth, or fifth time...or, now that they appear to be working in concert with the other major nations of the world, who is to say that this is not a new normal, where debt never matters. Where trillions or even quadrillions just don't make a lick of difference. I know there are several obvious counter arguments such as, debt has to matter eventually based on history and the nature of debt, often followed by Margaret Thatchers quote. But we are not spending other people's money, we are simply making money out of nothing. And for all the years this has been going on, where is all the hyper inflation it was supposed to cause? Some will say it is in the housing market, the stock market, the bond market, the student loan market...great...and? So what? It just doesn't seem to matter. If homes become too expensive, then they just build more condensed housing instead and that is what people buy. If student loans get too high, then people just take on as much debt as they can afford, over a 50 year payment plan. If the government lets students default on their student loan payments, the government will just cover that with more printed money. If they allow students to declare it as part of a bankruptcy, it will come with a bailout of any entity impacted by that, more printed money. There is no problem that I can see that can't be fixed by the Gov printing money to paper it over. So will all that debt ever matter when the fallout from too much debt seems to be effectively repaired by issuing more debt. Lastly, people are extremely flexible and will just bend to the will of the inflation wherever it might surface. And when they finally reach their max, when not a penny more can be squeezed out of them, the debt will stay right there with 45 year mortgages and 50 year student loan plans while the American dream becomes a 900 s.f. town-home. People just adjust. Some might argue that it might take decades to reach that, but that is decades for everyone in power or at the table to reap the rewards. And if one of these bubbles does burst, some new plan will be hatched (or old plan already written will be executed) from the recesses of some mansion library filled with cigar smoke and whiskey tumblers that the Powers decide these things in, or wherever these globalist decisions are made these days, and another prop, probably made of debt, will be propped up under the last prop, and so on. I am not advocating any of this. I don't like any of it. I want free markets, capitalism, NAP and individualism. But when I talk to people and they ask me about the economy, and they ask about when they should buy a home, or if they should buy gold, or what to do about saving for their kids college - the final solution of my thought process looks remarkably like those algebra problems we endured. A blank piece of paper then covered in numbers and symbols as we worked our way down to find a solution generating an upside down pyramid of pencil scratches and smeared lead in the process of solving for X, but in this case, for me, for this problem: X = Does Debt Matter?

I recently saw an article on how the milk industry was killing off cows to engage in price fixing on milk. To anyone who understands the free market this seems ludicrous, it's simply not possible to price fix in a true free market for any length of time before new entrants resolve that problem, with that time being even shorter on something as homogeneous as milk. It did not take long before I began seeing the predictable comments against free markets, similar to, "See? Aren't Libertarians always spouting off about free markets, well this is what happens without government oversight." Knowing it is not possible to have price fixing without government involvement I spent a minute Googling and came across a Reason.com article from a few years ago that asks why we allow the government to fix the floor and ceiling of milk prices in America. Are they related? I think it may be possible. I think a podcast on how and why the milk industry was able to "price-fix" if indeed that was what it even was would be a great show, especially if we are going to be defending free markets now against the "muh milk" offense from progressives. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/cow-killing-and-price-fixing-in-your-supermarket-dairy-aisle http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/04/why-is-government-fixing-the-price-of-mi

I was at my in-laws for Thanksgiving today. My MIL is Middle Eastern, my FIL (also M.E.) recently passed away. My two BIL's (Brother In Law's) were there as well. I've been married for over ten years and have known this family for 15 and we all get along very well. I'm white, which is to say Irish/Italian/Scottish and my wife was born in Afghanistan. I grew up in CT, she grew up in SoCal. We both work, have professional careers and I would say we have a solid marriage. We have one daughter. Four years old. I've attended countless Middle Eastern weddings, engagements, birthday parties, went inside a Mosque for a funeral (out of respect for my FIL as the person who died was close to him). I believe I have been very respectful of our cultural differences and have acclimatized to their culture very well - which is not very hard. They are non-practicing (and those who are, are non-vocal about it), and I am an Atheist, so religion is not a factor. They are almost all Democrats and I am a Libertarian, but most do not discuss politics as they are very polite, so this too is not a factor. The extended family is very respectful, polite, is and always has been very nice to me. I have returned in kind. The BIL's and I have gone camping, hiking, road tripping together - we get along very well. Prior to Freedomain Radio, I was in the "spanking is necessary" camp because I was spanked. Not very often, in fact, I can probably count the times on one hand. My wife was not in this camp. We discussed it some before we had kids and the most I would agree to is to try not to, but there may come a time when it is necessary and we will revisit at that time. With that we had our first child, but by then I had been listening to Stefan for awhile and had adopted his peaceful parenting mindset. As such, my daughter has never been spanked, etc. I don't even like doing Time Outs, although I do admit to three so far when I had reached the end of my tolerance level. My daughter is very well behaved, and polite, and listens to instructions and responds to even the slightest elevation in my voice if she is beginning to cause a problem. It is very easy for me to keep her on the right path, and I smother her with love and kisses and tell her I love her every day. She loves to sit next to me, and talk to me and show me things, she makes me laugh like crazy. I teach her things all the time, show her science, read her books before bed, take her everywhere I can. I think we have a great relationship. Her and my wife also have a great relationship, but my wife does not really engage in behavior control, or what I might call - growing up. I am the one that got my daughter to stop using her pacifier, to go to the bathroom on a regular basis, to stop using a baby bottle and then to stop using a cup with a straw. I got her to start eating toast without it being cut into little bite size pieces and to stop waiting for someone to spoon feed her, to go to bed at 9:30pm regularly instead of 1am, to stop crying when it was time to poop and to stop whining and crying when it was time to leave the playground or <insert fun place here>. It is me that achieved this because my wife, for whatever reason, prefers not to force these issues and relies on me too. Instead, she waits until my daughter breaks the last straw and then my wife has a meltdown and just starts yelling - thankfully that has only been a handful of times. I am fine with being the enforcer because if not me, who will? And I think it is necessary. I don't use force. I use reason and rational arguments, and I have used the threat of lost privileges only a couple times, and followed through, and that seems to have stuck so I almost never have to do it anymore. I don't really have any issues with my daughter's behavior, and what little there is I can correct in seconds or a few minutes peacefully - she's an awesome kid. But my MIL is notorious for being worse than my wife. My daughter abuses my MIL like there is no tomorrow (orders her around, makes her play with her endlessly, makes her do everything for her) and my MIL does nothing about it. Okay, well, if that is how THEY are going to be together - I can live with that. But what is worse, is that when I try to correct my daughters abysmal behavior at my MIL's house, my MIL immediately steps in and agrees to whatever my daughter's demands are, or intercedes between me and her to protect her from what is clearly me getting frustrated. For example, if I say to my daughter, "It's time to go now." She will say, "But I want to play Kingdom more." And I will say, "I know, and I told you that you could play it for 5 more minutes before we leave, and it's been 5 minutes so it's time to go," My daughter will get upset and my MIL will immediately grab the kingdom came and sit down with my daughter and say, "It's okay, it's okay...we will play Kingdom. Let's play." And my daughter plops down and I am standing there like an idiot. Don't get me wrong, my MIL is a "nice woman" and has always been extremely friendly with me, and cooks food I like, and tries to make sure I am not uncomfortable, etc... But I cannot express how infuriating this behavior from her is. So I told my wife, I cannot stay here, we need to leave (this was after three or four of these "intercessions" from my MIL, not just one). She knew I was doing all I could to keep a lid on my frustration, and I was only doing that because this was the first Thanksgiving for both of them without my FIL. We left my daughter with my MIL and went home (we only live a few miles away). In the end, we got into an argument on the way home. She agrees with me, and that my daughter was acting poorly and my corrections were not excessive or unwarranted, but that it is simply a cultural difference. She explained to me that in M.E. culture, when children need to be corrected in public, they are taken aside, and the problem is explained to them quietly in private, and they are released back into the environment, OR, they get corrected after they get home. As my wife said, "You know what I mean, the 'eye' your parents would give you and you knew you were going to get it when you got back home." The only problem I have with this is the level of correction I was doing was almost nonexistent. If my daughter started talking back to my MIL, I would say, "Michelle, be nice. That's not a polite way to talk to someone else." Or when my daughter started whining at the table because she was "done eating" which in her world works like this; take two bites, say your full, then go play while everyone else eats, then make grandma hand feed her for 30 minutes. Since I already know this is her plan, I simply asked her to stay at the table, be polite, let everyone else finish eating, then she can go play - and since she has to stay here anyway, she should probably eat. Basically, my corrections sound like this, "Don't do that, "Be polite," "Don't be bossy," "Lower your voice" and "Time to go." Apparently this causes a culture clash. I am correcting my daughter in "public" (a nuclear family gathering is public?) the "American Way" and somehow this conflicts with the "Middle Eastern Way." The way my wife explained it, since my MIL and BIL's have only ever known me to be a happy-go-lucky guy that always laughs and has fun, it is very "uncomfortable" for all of them to hear me use a stern voice to correct my daughter's behavior. My counter argument was that if my MIL did not enable my daughter to ignore my first correction, there would never need to be a second, third and fourth - so really, it is their passivity and disregard for MY culture that causes the problem to escalate to the "uncomfortable" level - for them anyway. As I never felt uncomfortable about it, until now. So that is where I am at. Waiting for my wife to go pick up my daughter so two hours after it happened, I can correct the bad behavior "in private." Anyway, any opinions or insights would be useful. If I am wrong, I am wrong. I'm not looking for confirmation of my position. I am not averse to change, I already abandoned spanking, so if I am jacking this up I have no problem looking at it from another point of view.