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Drinking the von Mises Kool-Aid
This is a response by Keith Gardner to someone named Dan McLaughlin. McLaughlin's quote is at the top, followed by Gardner's excellent response. - complete article link (Bill Still, Money Masters and The Secret of OZ)
Pro-Austrian Point - McLaughlin
"You might actually want to read some of Mises works, because you obviously don’t have the slightest clue about the ideas he put forth. Adam Smith was certainly one of the great minds in economics, but his absolutely false labor theory of value gave credence and ideological support to Marxist theories.
Most of what Mises said was merely a comprehensive treatment of ideas which incorporated and expanded on those that sprouted in the 1870’s, primarily those of Carl Menger. If you can lump Mises with Keynes and Marx, then you certainly don’t understand. Mises is the antidote for Keynes and Marx."
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Counter Point - Gardner
"you obviously don’t understand the concept of false left/right paradigm. one false paradigm props up the other paradigm because neither are correct. there is always a perpetual struggle and the congress utilizes myths of both to push towards a marxist state.
a true libertarian paradigm is not acceptable to the international banking cartel.
that is why they deliberately funded and pushed ludwig von mises on the population in the early 1900s, while they instituted the federal reserve and gold standard, usurping the constitution.
the economic theories of ludwig von mises are based on no empirical evidence nor supported with consistent definitions or logic. human action was written as poorly, if not worse with his obfuscating language, than even das kapital. i actually labored through the original propoganda of ludwig von mises. complete trash. anything said of value was already said by uncorrupted men and usually taken out of context. if you actually read ludwig von mises, rather than consume the foundation propaganda on a daily basis, you’d understand why i said “labored” through his work. if i didn’t throw it away, i may still have a copy for you to read if you enjoy torture. i consumed the propoganda on a daily basis from the mises foundations. but i had the intuition to realize there were things which didn’t add up.
they continue to push the gold standard because it is the favorite monetary fraud of tyrants throughout history. bringing back the gold standard would be economically destructive, whereas going on a true colonial scrip, greenback, or continental currency would provide the funding through the monetary expansion needed to end fractional reserve lending in order to eliminate the national debt and end income taxation. the endgame of tyrants is a world gold fiat though a world debt fiat would be acceptable to them as well. they can always switch between debt fiat and gold fiat as one system causes complete economic breakdown, like a false left/right paradigm, pushing the former fraud as the solution to the current fraud.
if you ever spent a tenth of the time you spend reading rockefeller foundation funded ludwig von mises and the ludwig von mises institute propaganda, the constant parade of strawman, ad hominem, definition inconsistency, and reducto ad absurbum, by reading and studying henry george, you would see the cat.
you are guilty of what you accuse others. you’re part of the false paradigm and can’t see the truth. that is why the vulgar libertarianism you push has never caught on. it is difficult to be popular when you’re wrong.
you might want to take a look carefully at the libertarian party’s david nolan and the ludwig von mises institute’s robert andelson. both georgists. robert andelson even wrote a text on how academia was corrupted. you might want to look at what people like milton friedman and albert einstein said about henry george. you might want to take a look at mason gaffney and fred foldvary, two georgists who aren’t paid to be silent or obfuscate, like murray rothbard. carl menger, thomas malthus, herbert spencer, max stirner, and ayn rand were dopes too. land, labor, commodities, capital, and currencies are distinct classes of objects."
Gutsy call to take on Mises and the Austrians, but I think it needs to be done and Keith Gardner does a fine job of it. The libertarians and many conservatives are spell bound by Austrian beliefs that do not square up with math (see my post Austrian & Keynesian Theories Vs. Mathematical Facts).
Perhaps more importantly, Mises never acknowledges, or takes into account, the fact that sovereign nations hold the power to create their own money free from any banker debt. The assumption is that government cannot be trusted and that we need private banks to handle the nations finances. The great American "experiment" was based on the premise that people are capable of governing themselves. Austrian beliefs violate this most fundamental axiom.
Keith Gardner states that the "Rockefeller foundation funded Ludwig von Mises and the Ludwig von Mises institute." In support of this claim, I offer some substantiating sources:
"Many readers may be surprised to learn the extent to which the Graduate Institute and then Mises himself in the years immediately after he came to United States were kept afloat financially through generous grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. In fact, for the first years of Mises’s life in the United States, before his appointment as a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University (NYU) in 1945, he was almost totally dependent on annual research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Even after he finally landed the position at NYU, where he remained only a visiting professor until his retirement in 1969, his salary was paid for not by NYU, but from funds contributed by generous private supporters."
- Mises wife, Margit Herzfeld, wrote in her biography of Ludwig Von Mises
"that he participated in Count Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan Europe movement in 1943. He had been brought to the U.S. in 1940 by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation of $2500 a year to work at the Natl. Bureau of Economic Research, which grant was renewed in 1943."
- Eustace Mullins wrote in his book "The World Order, A Study in the Hegemony of Parasitism"
"Hence his [Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England] campaign in favour of completely autonomous central banks, dominating their own financial markets and deriving their power from common agreement among themselves. They would succeed in taking out of the political realm those problems which are essential for the development and prosperity of the national financial security, distribution of credit, movement of prices. They would thus prevent internal political struggles from harming the wealth and the economic advancement of nations.
In short, Norman wished to see the imposition of the World Order over the financial affairs of the nations. It was this agreement among the central banks, rather than the front organization, the League of Nations, which became their final instrument of power. Crucial to these arrangements was the monetarist school, the Austrian School of Economics, an outgrowth of the Pan-Europe movement."
This information is relevant to the discussion as the well meaning "Austrian believers" are perhaps the biggest obstacle to true monetary reform. We will have no freedom until we once again exercise our financial sovereignty; without it, government, commerce and the people will remain subservient to international bankers.
Larry
END the FED before it ENDS US
Print
Larry,
I am certainly not an Austrian expert but I do consider myself an Austrian sympathizer. What I do not understand is your constant pissing on the one group of people that share your objections to Central Banking and debt based money. It is hard to have a rational converstion on this topic when any objections that are brought up to your beliefs are ignored. We will see how many converts you can gain with this silly strategy. Have a nice Easter.
What is the Philosophy of Liberty? http://www.isil.org/resources/introducti...
I do see problems using gold and silver only as backing, but must say I have not discarded a currency backed by something.
Money should be backed by liberty.
The fact that gold and silver have historically been used as the agreed standard doesn't mean they have to be... it's the freedom issue that truly matters, not a particular commodity !
The freedom to accept or refuse what you deem acceptable in return for your goods or your labour. Traditionally, that's been commodities or between neighbours simple good faith.. the return of value for value..
The FRN is good for repaying debt. through legal force.
It's like a voucher for the "company store" .. it's a currency fit only for slaves.
Whoever controls the quantity of the currency (or the material backing it) controls everything.
Who has the lion's share of the PMs?
Larry's arguments are 100% valid. I've yet see anyone offer any proof otherwise.
As far as pissing on someone, if a person is wrong, they are wrong and being called out for it is the correct thing to do by a caring person.
Thanks from the Beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, Tycer
The direct connection between the Federal Reserve System and the US Congress that created it --------
The Federal Reserve System controls the nations monetary system
BUT
the U.S. Government is there to protect that system, by its enacment of Legal Tender laws.
By decreeing Federal Reserve notes as legal tender,
it is our government that granted the Federal Reserve a monopoly on money and forced all Americans to accept them without question.
Why the unholy alliance? The answer is simple:
In return, the Federal Reserve provides government with funds it could not otherwise collect in direct taxation, which is politically unpopular.
Legal Tender law allows the government to spend as much as it wishes and pay its bills without fear of the citizens refusing to accept its money or choosing an alternative ( which they always did in the past.)
You do not need force to have men accept good money, you need it for bad money.
The elephant may have been trampling us for about a hundred years,
but it is our government that put handcuffs on us all that prevented escape.
Carl
Tycer: Once the people realise that they can control the definition of money, that question becomes irrelevant..
Nobody has any gold ? Ok.. lets use wheat berries.. or kisses, or ...
DrKrbyLuv wants the state to take the power back from the bankers. A minor victory... since the state has proven all too corruptible.. this is the third central bank remember ! " fool me once.. shame on me.. " (tm) DrKrby wants to try it a fourth time...
I want the people to take the power back... simply by realising that they already have it.
Upon their return to Emerald City, the Wizard is reluctant to grant the group their wishes. Toto exposes the great and powerful wizard as a fraud; they find an ordinary man hiding behind a curtain operating a giant console which contains a group of buttons and levers. They are outraged at the deception, but the wizard solves their problems through common sense and a little double talk rather than magic. He explains that they already had what they had been searching for all along and only need things such as medals and diplomas to confirm that someone else recognizes it.
The wizard explains that he, too, was born in Kansas and his presence in Oz was the result of an escaped hot air balloon (although his balloon says Omaha, which is a city in the neighboring state of Nebraska). He promises to take Dorothy home in the same balloon, leaving the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion in charge of Emerald City. Just before takeoff, Toto sees a cat and jumps out of the balloon's basket. Dorothy jumps out to catch him and the wizard, unable to control the balloon, leaves without her. She is resigned to spend the rest of her life in Oz until Glinda appears and tells her that she has always had the power to return home, through the power of the ruby slippers. Glinda explains that she did not tell Dorothy at first because she needed to find out for herself that she doesn't need to run away to find her heart's desire.
John99 wrote:
The problem I have conceptualizing a government issued debt-free currency is the corruption displayed by virtually every government we'd care to examine - that being the temptation to print themselves as much money as they'd like for wars, patronage projects and on and on. So number one question is how can we expect a government to issue an honest money supply not to provoke inflation or deflation?
John, thanks for the questions. I don't know that we should expect government to act in our best interest while they are totally subservient to the international banking cartel. As a nation, we do not have the power to charter an economic course because we have no money nor ability to create it. Every "dollar" must come from the private bankers including the service of current debts. They may fund or shut-down the government at their whim.
Election campaigns become compromises, or worse, for anyone running for high office as the expenses are horrendous and the lobbyists have the money and party backing to select our candidates through bribes, perks and extortion. In yielding to your point, I would think that campaign finance reform must be part of the process.
Individuals should be free (constitution) to contribute to whoever they want. Corporations should not be allotted the same rights as individuals; they should not be able to contribute without full disclosure and tax penalties.
I agree that it would be a mistake to replace the predatory banking cartel with a spend happy federal government. There must be some restraint built into the system and I think that decisions should be "de-centralized" from the federal government to the states and private sector. Here is my massaged list of "possible solutions" rehashed from an earlier thread.
Dennis Kucinich and his financial adviser, Steve Zarlenga, have suggested using debt free money to pay for social services. I don't think this is a good idea as it could spiral out of control within a relatively short time period. I think the Federal government needs to be kept on a short leash.
My suggestion is to split the creation and distribution of new money. The Treasury could create all new money and the private sector could continue to distribute most of it in the form of loans. Here are some ideas for transition:
- Private banks could basically continue on with one exception; all money they lend, if not theirs, should be electronically transferred from the Treasury as interest free loans. An issuance fee could be charged to provide a revenue stream for the federal government to eliminate income and employment taxes. In the future, the federal government should pay for itself without creating new money.
- State government should have special drawing privileges (through chartered banks) to build and repair infrastructure, fund energy saving programs and alternatives, build mass transit systems. Debt free and interest free money could be made available.
- We owe the private Federal Reserve around $4.5 trillion not including interest. I would pay this in full but refuse any interest charges. This would extinguish the debt, it would simply cease to exist. Yes, this would be deflationary so it should accompany the direct issuance of some new money into circulation through other mechanisms. The RICO Act should be used to investigate and audit the Fed. Their assets should be immediately seized pending the investigation outcome.
- Intergovernmental debt should be repaid (SS and Medicare, etc) and that money should NOT be extinguished since it was borrowed twice. Interest should be paid since the lender was actually lending their (our) money. I think this is basically a zero sum game as far as inflation/deflation as the money already exists.
- Foreign and private debt should be repaid with interest as the bonds become due. Principal repayments could be created as new money but I'm not sure about the interest.
- The Federal government should not be allowed to borrow money after we get out of debt, ever again. Given the new income, they would have a budget to operate within. There may be times when we would want the federal government to directly spend money into the economy but each event should be passed by congress with a specific reason and an exact time frame - nothing perpetual.
- I would consider buying all the mortgages in the country since we are backing them up with our credit guarantee. I would "prepay" only the principal and reduce the interest payments to 2-5%. As of 2008, I think residential and commercial mortgages totaled around $14.7 trillion. If the average duration were 12 years and the interest rate were 4%, then it would provide an interest income of $49 billion a year. As the principal is repaid, it would be extinguished.
- Would the wall street banks that are too big to fail, fail? Probably, and we should refuse to pay any derivative losses. In fact we should tax derivatives to end the notational amounts. This would be good for the country and a bonanza for smaller, local banks.
- The Wall Street banks and big box retailers currently hold much of our credit card debt. Since many on Wall street would not make the cut, this would become a problem. I would consider buying this debt, interest free, by creating new money and lending it to interested banks to profitably collect via interest or service fees. Principal payments would be extinguished. This would provide another source of much needed income.
The important thing to remember is that by taking back our power and constitutional mandate to create our own money; we gain an awesome creative opportunity. We also cut the international banking shackles in re-exerting our national sovereignty. Many of the international bankers would be moved to the productive part of the economy by making license plates in prison.
Larry
END the FED before it ENDS US
Thanks Larry for the heavy lifting. We don't need the answer to all problems yet we do need to see past Austrian obfuscation. Best answer? Ocram's rawer. James
goes211 wrote:
What I do not understand is your constant pissing on the one group of people that share your objections to Central Banking and debt based money.
I can't respond to your objections unless you are more specific as to where I may be wrong.
We (nation) have neither gold nor silver so that cannot be a tenable course though I do agree with experts (CM for example) that people should buy and hold private allocated and/or personally possessed PMs.
Larry
END the FED before it ENDS US
Whoever controls the quantity of the currency (or the material backing it) controls everything.
I agree that it does not matter what backs money. This is because all money is nothing but a shared illusion and only has value as long as everyone else believes that it does. The real question I have is should money be FORCED upon us? If it is not forced upon us, most likely people will choose a money that cannot be arbitrarily deluted by a third party and has some sort of inherent value.
Who has the lion's share of the PMs?
Who said the money has to be backed by PMs? I merely would prefer it backed by something tangible instead of the full faith and credit of a discredited system. Certainly at this point the tangible assest are largely controlled by the same people who control the system. For this reason alone I don't doubt that the conversion from the current system to any system will not materially change who are the haves and have nots.
A conversion to sovereign credit might stop the upward flow of wealth due to interest but it also may freeze those at the top into their positions above us all. I wonder if a revolution and systematic reset would work better to everyones benefit it the long run.
As far as pissing on someone, if a person is wrong, they are wrong and being called out for it is the correct thing to do by a caring person.
I don't mind being called wrong but at this point I just don't think that I am.
I wonder if you would feel the same way if someone started posting threads that are clearly just being antagonistic to your point of view? Would it be pleasant to you if we had a bunch of threads posted by people from mises.com with names like the following.
Drinking the Byron Dale Kool-Aid
or maybe
Bill Still's Delusion of Oz
What is the Philosophy of Liberty? http://www.isil.org/resources/introducti...
Ok Larry, when I first came to the CM site I was firmly on side to return to a PM backed currency. Now through the efforts of yourself and a few others, I do see problems using gold and silver only as backing, but must say I have not discarded a currency backed by something. A friend of mine, a Chemistry professor said any substance requiring thermodynamics could be used, and I seem to remember some old Star Trek episodes that used commodity-backed currencies, but we'll leave that off to the side for the moment.
The problem I have conceptualizing a government issued debt-free currency is the corruption displayed by virtually every government we'd care to examine - that being the temptation to print themselves as much money as they'd like for wars, patronage projects and on and on. So number one question is how can we expect a government to issue an honest money supply not to provoke inflation or deflation?
2nd question: This might work well (or be accepted) by the US but what about other countries - let's say the future government of Zimbabwe or Sudan, or Fudpuckerland, Africa? How are we to trust their government-issued currencies to affect trade and commerce?
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." E. Burke “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." Gandhi