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The Creditor and the Duck Junkie

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

This was a blogworthy youtube, courtesy of someone on Facebook…

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I won’t say anything nice about Tony Abbott.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

… I’ve been fooled once.

We at Extreme Capitalists have been pretty busy. Dan is currently deep in study and I am simply a lazy git. A lot has happened over time and more will happen in due season. Australia’s grand hostage negotiator Malcolm Turnbull has finally been disposed of for compromising and letting the terrorists bring down our industry.

One thing I have learned in 2009 is that people capable of having principles guide their concepts and integrity guide their actions are not capable of being elected. From memory the people who did like Malcolm Turnbull was that he had principles. However, it turns out, he does not. I will not be fooled so easily again.

So now we have Mr Abbot leading the opposition. He seems alright, but after Turnbull, anyone will seem brilliant. Malcolm Turnbull was a pragmatist, to him the truth did not matter, objectivity did not matter, all that matters to pragmatist like Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull is that what they do is practical enough to be reelected. This neat system means that minorities get stepped all over by majorities.

That Mal and Rudd had a large part in the attempt at making this country a republic, makes me glad it didn’t happen. We wouldn’t get a republic that supports individual rights, we would get a socialist republic directly via the constitution.

The fact remains however: Australia has become a fascist state over the past 100 years. When the left call a country fascist, they mean a lack of democracy. What I call a fascist state, is when the Government democratic or autocratic, meddles in the simple affairs of our lives. The Australian Government might be democratic but things as simple as building on your own property are at the whims of your neighbors.

Funnily enough, the majority of Australian’s are happy here and the majority of Australian people are leftists by default. They don’t really have a political ideal, they just believe that they are the battlers and it is all far too hard for them and they need some help. What they don’t seem to realize is that help is just taxed out of them and handed back to them.

Politicians solution to taxation  lately has been in the form of just giving the money back rather than just taking less. Though only giving back to some of us.  This is far more pragmatic than tax cuts, because then people like Kevin Rudd don’t upset their friends in the Government who would lose their jobs collecting and distributing taxes.

The fact is, compromise sucks, and pragmatism sucks. A lot of people think Tony Abbot is great. I won’t make up my mind until he actually does something. The fact that Abbott only won over Turnbull by so few votes shows that the Liberal party still has a massive problem.

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Marriage law as an affront to true freedom of contract

Saturday, November 14, 2009

In European history marriage originally was little more than a legal agreement between two families who arranged their children’s marriages. In the past this combined with celibacy essentially meant that your family arranged your sexual habits. Although we are long past that point, and have far more freedom marriage these days in even the civilized country is wrapped up in red tape and laws.

A marriage country today in the civilized world piles on a lot of regulations and rules. Many people today seek external prenuptial agreements to save them from the ridiculous requirements for divorce. Because of the bindings of a marriage contract, in divorce, the highest earner has to sacrifice their private property. This is no secret, yet I am surprised so many get married under these conditions. Personally, I think it is very backward for one party of a divorce to get a gigantic handout. This usually being a woman, maybe women should raise the question: “Are we really that worthless that we need this kind of help?”

The other kind of regulation on marriage is explicitly not allowing gay marriage. For some reason, the Government, and a large portion of the public are actually stupid enough to believe that marriage is a building block of society, and they have the right to interfere with the lives of others. Personally, I don’t think it is just the freedom of gays that these people are against. These people are against freedom in general, but specifically: freedom of contract.

I know I am not alone when I say: “Hey! How about we put anything we darn well want on a contract!” If me and my wife to be want to put a clause in that demands a commitment, say a specific monetary commitment when one of us is out of work, we should be allowed. Likewise, if a homosexual wishes his contract to be with another homosexual, it is not the business of anyone else to interfere.

Under a system where freedom is protected, it is always a good measure to make sure contracts can’t be invalidated by the whims of the public. Freedom itself is an idea that started with the idea that the individual was sovereign – not the Government or the Church.

It is a really bad idea to allow the Government to meddle with contracts on principle. Let’s say you have a contract with a telephone company (and you probably do), and the executive of that telephone company does a favor for a friend in the Government, and his friend has to do something for him. So he gets the Government to meddle with your contact, binding you to the phone plan for the rest of your life. It would really suck wouldn’t it?

Interestingly, a lot of the conservative morons say that heterosexual marriage itself is a principle that is part of society. However, freedom is the principle of any society that is just. Conservatives know this, just listen to them babble on like they do in America. When the principle of heterosexual marriage involves violating the principle of voluntary contracts in a free society, the Law of Non Contradiction, courtesy of my good friend Aristotle comes in.

Clearly, Government intervention violates voluntary contracts and association in any case. The conservatives will back be me all the way if I’m opposing cash for clunkers, the healthcare debate, and more. However when it comes to marriage, suddenly they are all shouting to be pragmatic, and to put principles on hold for a while. Suddenly, they are the group who believe the constitution is nothing more than a list of suggestions, and that freedom is subservient to their whims.

For many years Ayn Rand complained that the creature destroying capitalism was the Christian conservatives defending it, weakly, as they clearly do. However we live in an age of Wikipedia experts on her philosophy (and everything else), who don’t really understand what she really meant by this. What she meant I have left well expressed and clear. The morality of Christianity is altruistic, oppressive, and backward. Evil can’t be used to defend anything that is good: self-interest and capitalism. Any moral code that demands a certain level of positive rights is antithetical to negative rights.

I think that is the other interesting point that can be said about Objectivist ethics compared to all others. The Objectivist ethics bare no contradiction with the laws of a free and individualistic society. I mention this because I meet many libertarians who say that Objectivist’s are too moralizing. However I can’t blame the Nihilists for being Nihilists when most of the field of ethics is a pile of patronizing rubbish. I can blame the Conservatives though, they made a choice to contradict their own rhetoric about freedom and refuse to correct it.

In fact, maybe we should question the title of these so called Conservatives against gay marriage. Their arguments are all based around it being a building block of society. Despite that they may hate socialists, they themselves want to impose their grand design on society by ‘protecting it’ through a ban on gay marriage. Clearly if you want to fight the socialists, you don’t want to join the conservatives, as they are clearly socialists as well. There is nowhere to run, now.

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The Stock Market and Me

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

I just want to state that despite last week being quite terrible on the market that I actually think there will be an upsurge any time now that might shock people. I’m thinking along the lines of 2.5% gains in major indexes of the US market in a single day to come.

I usually refrain from crystal balling the stock markets, however this time I am willing to take the risk of sounding stupid, if things don’t play out. Lately I see the current declines of the market to be related to an onslaught of bad news.

Despite all the bad news, Vectorvest, my source of wisdom in the market tells me interesting information. It does an analysis of stocks on the basis of their assets, future inflation, along with a growth rate prediction. This source of information tells me that, from the time the Dow Jones hit that glorious 10,000 that the valuation of all the companies in the Dow hit 12,000+ and that now it has hit 13,000+.

I am an Austrian myself with economics, but founded on a lower dollar and high oil or not the Dow Jones still has a long way to go before a serious underlying bear market trend kicks in. This also tells me that the US dollar has a lot of room to move lower, and that the price of oil is moving up.

In the short term, as in three months, stocks with strong fundamentals and P/E ratios are going to be on the upswing. I urge people to stay the hell away from stocks that have a weak or speculative outlook.

If you are completely new to the market or too scared to start I advise looking at Updown, a simple virtualized trading platform that allows you to see how good you can be in the US market.

I want to talk more about Vectorvest, which has a great history. Four months before the september crash in 1987, its valuation of the Dow Jones shifted below its price showing the market was overvalued. There is a similar story behind 1990’s bear market and the October 2008 crash. Great men have said the timing is the hardest part, yet Vectorvest gets it closer than anyone.

I think more than anything people need to understand the relative value of money. With the US dollar going down, and beyond what foreign exchange will say about it, that the money supply has increased vastly means that there will be new highs seen on major indexes that surprise people.

However, the sooner the market climbs the faster it is going to get to that 13000, 15000 mark on the Dow Jones which is probably where it will start going down again, and down fast.

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Racism 2.0

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Look back on the history of Government policies that one should call racist. From the slaves in the south to the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. From colonial times when aborigines were seen as mere animals to modern segregation. There has been a lot of racism in this world. Many say that the world has become a better place, that in civilized countries equality is a guiding principle.

There is one system that truly does treat all people equally: capitalism. This is in the sense of equal rights to not be forced and coerced. A simple order of negative rights. Capitalists like myself however do not believe that equality is a guiding principle in any incumbent government at this time.

Like there are positive and negative rights, there is now what can perfectly be described as positive and negative racism. Racial quotas on mines in Western Australia are imposed, forcing them to hire aboriginals. This means these aboriginals are hired purely on the basis of race, and this is an example of positive racism. (Continued)

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Micheal Moore: A Love Story.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Why do the press love to comment on his latest abomination lately? Why does anyone take seriously the man who made a film based on the sole premise of not having an interview with someone he actually interviewed? How is he taken seriously by anyone?

What is the answer to this love story?

I have heard more comments and discussion about Micheal Moore among conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists than anywhere else. Together these people discussing him make him look controversial and damned by capitalists, as if there is something worthwhile he has to add. The one thing that will lead more idiots than otherwise to view his documentary is the fact that he is being discussed as if his irrational lies served any potential goal at all. (Continued)

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The death of Australian conservatism

Friday, October 9, 2009

Last night on ABC’s Q&A, conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen let something slip which I think shows clearly why Australian conservatives have become irrelevant. No one has snipped video of the quote out of the episode, but here’s what she said:

JANET ALBRECHTSEN: Because at its core, conservatism is about being pragmatic. John Howard was pragmatic. He was the one who stood up, you know, in Sydney on 3 June on a Sunday and introduced an ETS so that the Liberal Party would have a determined and measured approach on an ETS. It would have a world class ETS.

At its core, conservatism is about being pragmatic? What do we think those in the Labor party would say? I think they would say, “at its core, social democracy is about being pragmatic”. So now we have two major parties, zero principles, and a “pragmatic” (read: ad hoc) response to everything.

Most of us aren’t surprised at this. Of course, the only thing major parties are interested in is the next election. This has left grassroots members of the Liberal party (who are actually principled) disillusioned, particularly those unfortunate enough to be in New South Wales.

None of this is to suggest that pragmatism isn’t useful. Unexpected problems arise which sometimes need a pragmatic response, but to suggest that pragmatism lies at the core of conservatism spits on those conservatives who actually believe something.

Join the LDP. We have principles and we aren’t afraid to use them.

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Garnaut denounces Krudd's anti-market rhetoric

Friday, October 9, 2009

Ross Garnaut has a new book out about the 2008 crash. Michael Stutchbury writes in The Australian today:

THE doyen of Labor economics advisers, Ross Garnaut, has warned that Kevin Rudd’s attacks on neo-liberalism risk an expansion of government that could damage the economy and even erode Australia’s democratic values.

…

Professor Garnaut warns that the ideological legacy from the crisis and its rebalancing of markets and regulation could be damaging. For instance, he argues that the public debate has overlooked the substantive lesson from the fake email episode involving the Treasury official in charge of the government’s OzCar finance scheme, Godwin Grech.

This was the danger of using “huge amounts” of public money to bail out private companies at the direction of bureaucrats.

He points to problems with other extensions of the “Australian bailout”, from the guarantee for wholesale bank borrowing to foreign bank subsidiaries, state governments, mortgage securities, commercial property and the bigger first-home buyers subsidy.

Krudd and his ilk are normally willing to brush off criticism like this, but I don’t think they will be able to do so when the criticism’s coming from someone that they themselves talked up so much.

I better get some popcorn.

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Starving Monkies: my reply to bankrupt morons.

Friday, October 9, 2009

This is a follow-up to my Libertarian Nuremberg Trial post. I was going to write a simple comment but I wrote this. It seems that these days, browsing around, I find a lot of comments filled with hate. The kind of things by free market supporters that makes me think they had more inspiration from social darwinism than Rand, Hayek, or Friedman.

Consider the scale of “post libertarian revolution” justice you choose you support, because it is going to be the deciding factor in your revolution. It will decide whether the new society is to have big government (holding mass proceedings, locking up hundreds of thousands of people). What is also to dictate the fate of any new order that might follow, is the culture behind it.

Judging from what I can see among most conservatives, some libertarians, and few Objectivists the cultural landscape points in a clear direction, but an unfortunate direction. Every time I see this claim, that people should be punished for wrongdoings under an enormous Statist regime, their claims what of what would constitute what would classify as the crime (or crimes) are so vague it belittles me that these people would see themselves on the same side of the fence as I.

The vagueness makes me think of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or Revolutionary France. Every nation that was born to the gulag, the concentration camp, the simple guillotine became and has remained a legacy of brutality, collectivism, and torture. Even if there were the best intentions, when the accused stand in their millions it makes no difference. The trials would denigrate, the prisons would be abhorrently inhumane, and worse, the people would have to pay for it all.

If you thought it was amazing how 9/11 could turn so many hearts, and the Gitmo and the patriot act could turn so many the other way – you would be amazed at what proceedings of this magnitude would do to a society. The last thing we need is a new culture founded on paranoia and mistrust. To think a massive collective could hold such a proceeding objectively is foolish.

It might seem unfortunate, the road might seem horrible, but the best thing to do will be to let Atlas Shrug. Internet filters will slow traffic, lead to blackouts, and censor what is right. People will be frustrated, and demand what is right. Rent controls destroy neighborhoods. People will demand their rights restored. It all seems far fetched.

One thing I have learned over the past few years is that most people, regardless of reading her fiction, completely misunderstand Ayn Rand. They simply believe it is as simple as the bridges falling with nobody to fix them. It requires more. Ayn Rand calls for a cultural revolution. A rejection of the mysticism, and statist trends for the sake of the individual. A Second Enlightenment is required.

Angry tirades by lonely school-kids that everyone is stupid and must starve to be enlightened are not just a mockery of Objectivism, but a benchmark toward how much more cultural development is required before progress will be made. Because it is clear, there are people of all manner of beliefs: libertarians, right wingers, left wingers, that are completely fucking insane.

These lunatics and their schoolboy fantasies are not helping. People read Atlas Shrugged and misunderstand Ayn Rand’s brilliant novel. People starving under the reign of statism is not what helps, statism failing and the ideal of individual becoming apparent through Galt’s speech is what actually helped.

When you approach the practicalities of politics and voting in the modern world my best advise is that you do absolutely nothing. Let the morons win. Let Obama “fix” the economy. Are you scared he will actually succeed? Fuck voting.

We don’t have John Galt’s magic radio jammer (sorry, Rand wasn’t an engineer, also sorry for doubting the prophecy) – what we do have is a decentralized Internet that through proxies and VPNs can physically never actually be filtered. When Obama, and future world leaders fail miserably, when China peer-reviewing the US economy fails, when all this bullshit produces the final result the “monkeys” as the moron who commented to inspire this so eloquently put it see what all their voting, councils, and leaders summits produced… then libertarianism will get a chance.

Obama is a socialist? Fucking awesome. Let him do his worst! I’ll do as little as I can help him or you. I will exist only to maintain my own existence. Besides, I still have thousands of great novels to read in the mean time.

I think a lot of the hate filled masses have been brainwashed by the following bullshit.

(Note: if you are on this list and comment it will be deleted)

  • Alex Jones documentaries
  • Zeitgeist
  • Any New World Order documentaries

Thanks, also 9/11 was an outside job, swine flu EVOLVED, women should have abortions if they want, Ron Paul is a religious fundie and even if he had office nobody would listen, I don’t care about your God – while were on that… where is he NOW?, Anarchy is simply gang warfare and miniaturized mob rule and collectivism, anarcho-capitalism is the same with currency,  socialism fucking sucks, you’re right communism has never been realized because its an impossible fucking pipe dream, geolibertarianism has nothing to disarm the state from enormous land-rent revenue, FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING IS NOT CENTRAL BANKING, and fractional reserves rock.

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Libertarian Nuremberg Trials

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I hear talk from time to time among libertarians that once small government is established, central banking abolished, and so on that there should be trials against those responsible, that there should be punishment and redistribution of those who caught windfalls from Statism.

I think these ideas are poorly conceived.

Such a trial would in itself destroy the essence of the libertarianism that established it. It would require a massive expansion of policing. It would require non-objective and vague laws that would lead to an oppressive government – much like the fate of France in revolutionary times when similar justice was put in the hands of mobs and the guillotine.

Anyone who understands central banking knows there are a lot of people getting unearned wealth. How many of these people know how much of their home loan came from freshly printed bills? I don’t think many people do. Punishing them would similar to totalitarianism: unsuspecting individuals suddenly trapped by new laws, guilty of crimes they had no intent nor knowledge of commiting.

Easy credit gets in everybodies hands, from welfare recipients to millionaires.

A true trial of those who gained from these evils would encompass most of the nation. It would lead to corruption in itself, with those in power trying to save those they love.

When a libertarian society finally exists those who could not produce honestly, those who extorted the system to its full extent will find the new way of living most painful. What we all need to remember is – is that the central banking system was the only way those people could survive. Without it, they would suffer by the simple reality of the natural order without coercion.

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