STIMULATING STIMULUS

Stimulating Stimulus

A drunk once confided to me: The reason God created booze and brewski was so that ugly people could enjoy sex too. I really don’t know why the fellow directed his observation about ugly drunk people in my direction but I did think at length about what he apparently said in humor. You know things like, if God wanted to ensure that the planet would always be fully populated, creating booze and brewski would be an easy way to do it. You know, a sort of Divine Stimulus Program. Nevertheless, I did curtail my alcohol consumption several-fold to test the drunk’s hypothesis and to lose some weight, what the sunshine boys call a Win, Win situation. On second thought, given that the hypothesis might indeed be correct, then perhaps it could end up being a Lose, Win situation. All of this brings to mind the famous quotation attributed to Sir Winston Churchill when Lady Astor accused him of being drunk, to wit the grand man was reported to have said, “Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly." But I digress. The Divine Stimulus Program to keep the planet populated got me to thinking about the Washington (Divine) Stimulus Program, you know, the one where the Government is creating money and the created money will somehow be injected into the economy which will then “stimulate” demand, which will then stimulate the economy to produce more goods, services, etc., which will stimulate the creation of jobs, which will stimulate the payment of money for labor (physical and intellectual), the payment of money for labor will then stimulate more demand for goods and services and, voila, a functioning and viable free market economy where only ruin and wreckage had once prevailed. Yeah, right. In days gone by, I was a Program Manager and I had to go to Washington DC to pitch my programs at Navy Headquarters in order to get money to execute my programs that the Navy wanted. The pitch was usually a view-graft presentation showing all of the elements of the program and how it would all come together, on time and within budget. Usually somewhere in the presentation things would inevitably get a little hazy on how a key element would occur (like requiring a technology that did not yet exist) and this is the place where a miracle would need to take place to make the program successful. Well in reality there are no such things as miracles and the so-called Government stimulus program requires a miracle somewhere in there to make it successful, and here is the reason why. First, there are two basic kinds of economies, a Top Down Economy (managed economy, e.g., USSR) and a Bottom Up Economy (free market economy, e.g., USA), with many variations in between. The USA has a free market economy even though with each passing day it becomes more and more a managed economy. The government intervening into a free market place by throwing artificial money into the system (the stimulus program, with more about artificial money later) transforms the functioning of the free market because the intervention is an attempt to manage the economy rather than let the free market place manage the economy. Just like you can’t really pay off a credit card with a credit card, you really can’t manage a free market place by intervening in it. If you attempt to manage a free market, you can only further disrupt the functioning of the economy. This counterproductive situation should be patently obvious even to Flim Flam Politicians. Let’s talk about money. Money is a wonderful invention by man to facilitate the functioning of an economy. Without money, we would be reduced to barter, and we all understand that an economy based upon barter would leave us stuck in the Stone Age. Real money is the medium of exchange (gold, paper certificate, ones & zeros, etc.) that we all agree has the same value as our labor, goods or property. Money relies exclusively upon the faith and trust of the people that money is as valuable as their hard work, property and productive enterprise. Real money can only be produced by productive enterprise because only real money represents real value. The Government cannot produce real money, only productive enterprise can produce real money and only real money is viable in a free market place because it alone represents real value. Government can only produce artificial money because it (the Government) is not engaged in productive enterprise in a free market economy. If the Government produces (prints or borrows) artificial money, that artificial money can only dilute the value of real money (inflation) because it (artificial money) was not produced by productive enterprise. Unless a miracle occurs, throwing artificial money into a free market economy cannot possibly grow the economy because the artificial money does not represent real value and the intervention is doomed to eventual failure. The only possible way to restart the economy and cause it to grow is to create the conditions favorable to productive enterprise. This can be done by a moratorium on business taxes, eliminate capital gains tax, provide incentives for business to do business here rather than outsourcing factories and jobs to more favorable locations. The most important change that must occur before any long term improvement can occur is that our economy must change from a 70% consumer driven Gross National Product (GNP) to a more sustainable productive enterprise GNP. So here is the situation that we are stuck with in this Government Stimulus Intervention. We will all get drunk on artificial money, but in the morning we will be sober, and the economy will still be ugly.

AMENDMENT XXVII

Amendment XXVII
(Proposed)

Section 1. The seventeenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed in its entirety.
Section 2. Senators appointed by their respective State Legislature to the Congress shall be compensated exclusively by the State Legislature that appointed them for all expenses and wages associated with the execution of their appointed office. Acceptance of any compensation or gift whatsoever by the Senator from any source other than from the appointing State Legislature shall be cause for immediate removal from office.
Section 3. Representatives elected to the Congress shall be compensated exclusively by the Congressional District from which they were elected for all expenses and wages associated with the execution of their elected office. Acceptance of any compensation or gift whatsoever by the Representative from any source other than the electing Congressional District shall be cause for immediate removal from office.

POLITICAL PARTIES, ENDURING NEMESIS

Political Parties,
Enduring Nemesis of the Republic

I believe it was Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote in his 1513 Tome, The Prince, “What doctors say about consumption applies here: at the beginning the disease is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose, but in the course of time, when it was not diagnosed at first and treated, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. Thus it happens in the affairs of state: if the evils that are developing are diagnosed from afar (which only the prudent man can do), they are quickly cured, but when they have not been diagnosed and are allowed to grow so that everyone recognizes them, then there is no longer any remedy for them.” It is my considered opinion that Political Parties, and the intellectuals who shape and control them, is ever much like the disease of consumption that Machiavelli used as a metaphor for the evils that can destroy a State. Just as the disease of consumption (tuberculosis) has a germ that is the basis of the disease (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and is the evil that can destroy a healthy body, there is also an evil that can also destroy the healthy body of a Constitutional Republic. The evil that can destroy a healthy, liberty-loving Constitutional Republic is a disease called factionalism. The disease of factionalism can destroy a healthy, liberty loving Constitutional Republic just as easily as consumption can destroy a healthy active human body. The disease of factionalism also has a germ that is the basis for the disease, and the deadly germ that causes the disease of factionalism is called a political party. Political parties are created for the expressed purpose of representing factions and then gaining power to prevail over other created factions. Political parties are therefore the very antithesis of a freedom-loving people seeking ways to come together for common cause. American political parties began with the establishment of the Federalists (strong federal government) and Anti-federalists (fearful of a strong federal government usurping a state’s sovereignty) and continue until this day. As Machiavelli pointed out, now that the disease of factionalism is finally diagnosed, the likelihood of curing the disease is a most difficult endeavor. Perhaps you are thinking that I’m overstating the importance of political parties being antithesis to our beloved Republic. Fair enough. Then perhaps you will consider the farewell address of President George Washington wherein the first President devoted most of his remarks about the evils of political parties. I have included a portion of his historic remarks on the subject below:
“They (political parties) serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
Even though it will be nearly impossible for the American people to cure the disease of factionalism caused by political parties, by the grace of liberty, it can be done. We can kill the germ of political parties by not supporting them in any fashion whatsoever. Come on America, don’t you really think it’s time for us citizens to think for ourselves and renew the Republic on an individual basis. I know it will be extremely difficult for a people conditioned by an entitlement culture fashioned by political parties to create lifelong constituencies, but it can be done by becoming independent citizens and voters and giving all political parties the boot.