The Latest
- NYT: Letterman Created a ‘Toxic Environment’ With Extramarital Affair [Glenn Sacks]
- The Money Show. [Jeweled Tiger School]
- Flashback: First case of marital rape involving co-habitating spouses: she was treated as a pioneer even though he was acquitted [False Rape Society]
- “My 6-year-old suddenly hates dad…why?” [Men's Activism News]
- Hanes Ad Employs Cutting Edge Theme of… [Glenn Sacks]
- Small-Town Mom Second American Woman Arrested in Terror Plot on Swedish Cartoonist [Men's Activism News]
- BBC’S BIG QUESTIONS TO FINALLY DISCUSS FALSE RAPE AND FATHERS RIGHTS [The Rights of Man]
- Woods responders concerned about domestic violence [Men's Activism News]
- Illustration of how the news media unquestioningly believes false rape claims are actual rapes [False Rape Society]
- In Ontario, Equally Shared Parenting Gets a Boost [Glenn Sacks]
- « More articles
NYT: Letterman Created a ‘Toxic Environment’ With Extramarital Affair
| Contributor: | Glenn Sacks [source] | |
| Date: | March 14, 2010 |
Read this article on Glenn's Web site
Topics: Glenn Sacks |
The Money Show.
| Contributor: | Jeweled Tiger School [source] | |
| Date: | March 14, 2010 |
Greetings Friends!
Today's post is going to focus on money. What it is, what it does, who controls it, how it finances feminist public policy [a][b], and what can be done to fix our monetary system so it contributes to maximum wealth, health, freedom, and happiness.
What is Money?
This is probably one of the most hotly debated topics in Economics and Finance. The two main schools of thought can be more or less divided into two camps:
1) Supporters of Fiat currencies issued by governments
2) Supporters of commodity backed money chosen by either free markets or by a government to serve as money.
To further your understanding of these two types of systems, I would refer you to Ellen Brown's webpage with respect to Fiat money, and I would refer you this podcast from Mises.org in support of commodity money.
Just so everyone knows where I stand in this great debate, I side with the Austrian School and its theory of Commodity money. The biggest problem I have with fiat money is that there is no basis underlying the electronic and paper money that governments circulate in a purely fiat regime.
For example, while many Libertarians such as myself favor money backed by gold or silver, the writings of Murray Rothbard clearly state that the commodity used doesn't matter.
He wrote:
4. The Monetary Unit
We have seen that every good is "in supply" if it can be divided into units, each of which is homogeneous with every other. Goods can be bought and sold only in terms of such units, and those goods which are indivisible and unique may be described as being in a supply of one unit only. Tangible commodities are generally traded in terms of units of weight, such as tons, pounds, ounces, grains, grams, etc. The money commodity is no exception to this rule. The most universally traded commodity in the community, it is bought and sold always in terms of units of its weight. It is characteristic of units of weight, as of other metrical scales, that each unit is convertible into every other. Thus, one pound equals 16 ounces; and one ounce equals 437.5 grains, or 28.35 grams. Therefore, if Jones sells his tractor for 15 pounds of gold, he may also be described as having sold the tractor for 240 ounces of gold, or for 6,804 grams of gold, etc.
It is clear that the size of the unit of the money commodity chosen for any transaction is irrelevant for economic analysis and is purely a matter of convenience for the various parties. All the units will be units of weight, and they will be convertible into pounds, ounces, etc., by multiplying or dividing by some constant number, and therefore all will be convertible into one another in the same manner...
And, extrapolating from Mr. Rothbard's analysis, it doesn't matter what the commodity is, so long as it meets certain attributes that societies have traditionally looked for in a monetary unit.
What does matter, in my opinion, is that the monetary unit (i.e. gold and silver) is the basis for whatever transactions take place. It is the ultimate unit of account. If you asked an accountant what is the basis of any given transaction, he would immediately tell you that the source document is the bedrock of whatever financial event took place.
In other words, if a check was cashed for $100,000, the accountant who would audit that transaction would request to see the check that was cashed. He's looking for signatures. He wants to hold the tangible document in his hand. If there is no source document, then there is no basis for the transaction.
And this is the strength of commodity money, and the great weakness of fiat money. There is no tangible item of value that backs up millions, billions, or trillions of paper dollars if the system is a purely fiat one.
China, as an example, has over two trillion dollars worth of foreign currency reserves. All of these promises are in fiat tender. Almost all of these reserves are in debt based, not asset based money.
Since the reserves China has are nothing more than promises to pay from the Central Bank that issued the dollar, yen, Euro, or whatever in the first place, what happens if the countries involved simply defaulted on their obligations? What if the Central Banks simply press a few buttons and create (see Case Against the Fed, p. 139 onwards.) trillions of additional dollars, Euros, or Pounds Sterling?
What is the basis of the reserves China has? What guarantees its value? How can China guard against the dilution of their reserves' purchasing power?
Under our present system, there is nothing that individuals or states can do to preserve the value of their holdings over time. There is nothing behind each individual piece of paper to back them up. Nations can never keep score, as unlimited amounts money can be created. Money, in this event, becomes worthless.
So, in my opinion, Fiat money is not real money because it does not meet all three of my tests of what money is supposed to be:
1) A store of value over time
2) A medium of exchange
3) A stable unit of account and economic calculation.
Because Fiat money is only good as a medium of exchange, Fiat money, in my view, is an EPIC FAIL.
What Does Money Do?
As alluded to above, money has multiple functions. It is a yardstick for financial transactions, performance and value. It is a means to transport wealth over time and space. It is the oil of commerce, and makes indirect exchange possible. Without money, economic and financial activities would be extremely difficult, time consuming, and inefficient.
Money is also like voting. In a free market, consumers spend money on the goods and services of their choice. If consumers aren't willing to spend money on a good or service, it acts like a vote of no confidence and the good or service goes away. In a sense, consumers in a free market, by spending money, tell producers and entrepreneurs how they should be directing their time, energy and resources.
This is why it is important for any monetary unit to be able to perform all of the functions of money listed above without interference or distortion inherent in such movements such as Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Corporatism, Unionism, and yes, Political Feminism.
This is why Fiat Money and inflation are so disastrous, as they impede the free market (i.e you and me) from pulling the levers of economic activity. Inflationism leads to bad decision making on the part of producers. It also robs savings from everyday people, which isn't good because savings is the foundation of capital formation. It's my contention that billions of individual people, each acting in their own economic best interest, can determine and regulate the economy much better than any small group of people acting in collusion to advance their own limited agendas.
Who Controls Our Money?
In a perfect world, consumers and citizens would control their money through their personal saving and spending activities. They would also create governments that would protect the rights of consumers and citizens to maintain control over their personal financial and economic decisions. Laws would be passed outlawing fraud, force, theft, and most importantly, monetary debasement. These laws would be strictly enforced.
Unfortunately, we live in a world of Fiat money, Wall Street Shenanigans, and massive government bailouts. Capital is NOT finding its way to its most productive uses... it's finding its way into the pockets of the well connected global elite.
And so, we need to discuss who really controls our money supply.
There are two institutions that control the economic resources of American citizens:
The Federal Reserve and the Bank of International Settlements.
Please visit these links to learn more about the Fed:
Goldseek radio (skip to 1:00:16)
Mises.org's numerous criticisms of the Fed
Secrets of the Temple
Secrets of the Federal Reserve
Even more.
Links on the Bank of International Settlements:
Articles by Joan Veon
Bilderberg.org resource page
Interestingly, the Bank of International Settlements has a much lower profile than our local Federal Reserve. In any case, please take some time to visit these links. You'll quickly understand who really controls our money supply and why.
Fiat Financing and Feminist Public Policy
Among other economically draining activities, such as endless wars, fiat financing makes feminist public policy possible. The fact of the matter is that our Matriarchal Fempire requires a vast amount of time, energy and resources.
The Federal government alone will dole out $438 million (see here, page 16) if the Congress fully funds 2011 proposed spending levels.
Lets look at the big picture.
According to Transform Communities.org, 1.6 billion dollars was spent in VAWA related programs from 1994 to 1999.
So, assuming that we have an average spend of $320 million per year ($1.6 billion/5 years), over a fifteen year period (1994 to 2009), we can roughly guestimate that 4.8 billion ($320 million * 15 years) was spent, at the Federal Level, on VAWA initiatives. We should probably assume that massive quantities of money have been spent at the state and local levels, and we should add in the massive costs of divorce that legislation such as VAWA has generated directly and indirectly.
Let's make some assumptions.
If, over a fifteen year period, we have spent $4.8 billion on VAWA programs, and we have spent $1.7 trillion ($112 billion * 15 years) for divorce related expenditures, and we assume that state and local government spent 30% of whatever Fedgov directly contributes in grant dollars (not a hard number but a best guess based on this Congressional Budget Office report), then we can guess that state and local governments have spent ($4.8 billion *.30) $1.4 billion on feminist public policy projects.
Based on all of this rough back of the envelope analysis, I would guess that, over this fifteen year period, the total cost for all this would be a cool $1.731 Trillion dollars. Going forward, assuming no major changes to spending levels, I would say that an average $115 billion dollars a year will be spent to maintain feminist public policy. Note that I am not taking inflation into account, so the true cost is and will be much higher.
By the way, it should be noted that annual expenditures for the negative outcomes VAWA contributes to add up to a much larger number than the so called "savings" that some claim that VAWA legislation has brought about.
On an annual basis, alleged VAWA annual average savings come out to: ($14.8 billion/ 5 years) $2.9 billion per year.
$2.9 billion "saved" - $115 billion spent = -$112.1 billion dollars annually.
Soo... where are all these dollars coming from? 1) Borrowing money from abroad and 2) Printing money.
All things are possible through Fiat Financing. Under a free market system of sound money, such expenditures by governments would be heavily scrutinized and watched like a hawk. In an inflationary fiat money regime, such as ours... nobody cares.
Spend all you want... We'll borrow and print more!
What can we do to fix the problem??
Most everyone knows by now that we have serious monetary problems. So what to do about them?
There seem to be two schools of thought.
Ellen Brown and Steven Zarlenga seem to be heading the charge for a pure fiat currency that is issued and managed directly by the government instead of the private Federal Reserve.
Listen to their ideas on Gnostic Media.
Financial Commentator Richard C Cook also has some interesting ideas for Monetary Reform that lean towards the Brown and Zarlenga position.
On the other side, there are the followers of classical sound money economics, such as Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and others who advocate private banking, asset backed money, and the abolishment of the Federal Reserve.
Click here, here, here, and here for more information.
I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which path of reform you will champion.
As for me, I personally prefer the ideas proposed by Ron Paul and others, but I am open minded enough to propose that we take the best of both worlds, put them to the test in the real world, keep what works, and jettison what doesn't.
In later posts, I will explain in detail my own ideas for reform. But the important thing for now is to spend some time with the information provided, and think of your OWN ideals for a new way forward.
It is my opinion that the current system will collapse under its own unsustainable weight, and all people will need to be prepared to join the debate and make double damn sure that our new economic system provides the maximum amount of wealth, prosperity, happiness, and leisure for all people, instead of just serving the interests of a few well connected businessmen, academics, and politicians.
Thanks for reading,
Kirigakure.
Topics: Jeweled Tiger School | Comments
Flashback: First case of marital rape involving co-habitating spouses: she was treated as a pioneer even though he was acquitted
| Contributor: | False Rape Society [source] | |
| Date: | March 13, 2010 |
Even if you don't remember the case, regular readers of this blog can imagine how the case was regarded by feminists. The wife was regarded as a pioneer, and the case was treated as a breakthrough.
Unfortunately, as is common in this area where ideology matters more than facts, the evidence didn't quite match the "wife-as-rape-victim" metanarrative.
Spoiler alert: he was acquitted. They got back together for a short time, then divorced on amicable terms. She got custody of their child, of course, and he was saddled with a support payment. They disputed whether his $18,000 defense costs for his rape trial should be classified as a family debt. (That was a lot of money in 1979, especially for an out-of-work 21-year-old cook.) See here.
Some enterprising producer even made a film about the case (which the wife didn't much care for).
Even acclaimed satirist Art Buchwald had his say about the case. (Trigger alert: feminists won't like what Mr. Buchwald wrote -- got to read to the end.)
The ex-husband eventually got in trouble with the law because he couldn't keep away from the ex-wife.
The most infuriating aspect of the matter, of course, was the reaction of the feminists. The story as reported by Time Magazine presented a classic "he said/she said" allegation of rape by a wife against her husband. Certainty about what happened was not possible, just as it is not possible in most such cases. Why the case was brought is anyone's guess, but I suspect ideology had something to do with it -- after all, a woman's crisis center urged the wife to bring rape charges, and for a lot of people, this case was bigger than these particular facts. Like Duke lacrosse, it symbolized something "more important" than whether a crime was committed and whether a man barely out of his teen years would spend the best years of his life behind bars. Those, you see, were insignificant trifles. What really mattered was the symbolism of a wife sending her husband to prison for rape.
Now read this next part carefully: after the husband's acquittal, the director of the crisis center whose representatives had urged the wife to bring the charges in the first place, had this to say: "I feel terrifically saddened by the verdict and concerned about the future of women who have to live with marital violence daily."
Read it again. Think about the insanity of that prompted that statement -- given that no one, except the two people in that bedroom, could possibly know what really happened.
Another crisis center worker said this: "Most of us are just in shock. It is a terrible setback for women, all women."
Did you get that? A terrible setback for women -- that a man who was found not guilty of rape on disputed evidence was not being sent to prison for many years.
Sigh.
I wonder, did it matter to either of these women, even a little bit, whether the accused young man was innocent or guilty? I mean, did they care even a little?
This case spurred feminist reformers to get the law changed everywhere to allow husbands to be convicted of raping their wives. Examples of the debate are found here and here and here.
Topics: False Rape Society | Comments
“My 6-year-old suddenly hates dad…why?”
| Contributor: | Men's Activism News [source] | |
| Date: | March 13, 2010 |
I've seen better from Carolyn Hax.
To see the anti-father bias in both the girl's mother and in Carolyn's response to it, just switch out the sexes. Had the dad been writing in about the mom, what would Carolyn or indeed any other columnist been likely to reply? It exposes the deep suspicion of fathers in our society even by the mothers of their children and the generalized and accepted distrust of men in general. No wonder so many men these days eschew fatherhood or association even with their own children. More even than the misandrist and anti-father court system, it is the attitudes of society in general that allow such things to exist that so well-discourage men from paternity at every turn, never-mind the arguments around human overpopulation or the unaffordability of having children these days.
Except:
From the letter:
'Please help. My 6-year-old has all of a sudden started saying she doesn't want to be around her daddy (my husband). She hates when I leave the house without her and cries before and after he takes her anywhere himself. She used to adore him. My husband is clueless about what brought on this change and so am I.'
...
From the reply:
'Ask your pediatrician, immediately. I would say to ask your 6-year-old directly -- she's certainly old enough to speak for herself -- but you have to be so careful not to put words in a child's mouth that I feel more comfortable steering you to a pro. Also, the more serious the problem is, the more likely she'll struggle to make sense of it enough to put it into words, and/or the more frightened she'll be that telling the truth will get her in trouble.
...
A dad with nothing to hide will presumably support, encourage and participate in this process, both for his daughter's benefit and for his own.'
Topics: Men's Activism News | Comments
Hanes Ad Employs Cutting Edge Theme of…
| Contributor: | Glenn Sacks [source] | |
| Date: | March 13, 2010 |
Read this article on Glenn's Web site
Topics: Glenn Sacks |
Small-Town Mom Second American Woman Arrested in Terror Plot on Swedish Cartoonist
| Contributor: | Men's Activism News [source] | |
| Date: | March 13, 2010 |
Story here. Excerpt:
'Last Easter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom with a $30,000-a-year job as a medical assistant, announced to her family that she had converted to Islam. A few months later, she began posting to Facebook forums whose headings included "STOP caLLing MUSLIMS TERRORISTS!"
On Sept. 11, she suddenly left Leadville, Colo., a small town in the Rocky Mountains, with her 6-year-old son for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry an Algerian man she connected with online, her family says. Paulin-Ramirez, who is 5-foot-11 and blonde, phoned her mother and stepfather in Leadville, providing them with an address in Waterford, Ireland, they say.
Now, she is in the custody of the Irish police, along with three other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder, according to officials familiar with the case. The nature of the authorities' suspicions about Paulin-Ramirez couldn't be determined on Friday.'
Topics: Men's Activism News | Comments
BBC’S BIG QUESTIONS TO FINALLY DISCUSS FALSE RAPE AND FATHERS RIGHTS
| Contributor: | The Rights of Man [source] | |
| Date: | March 12, 2010 |
The BBC's discussion programme "The Big Questions" on Sunday 14th March will be covering both the issues of anonymity of those accused of rape and also "whether children needs fathers".
Obviously the wording of that second question is hugely disturbing and ridiculous, very much along the lines of their "should homosexuals face execution" debate from a while back. I hope they're just being provocative again rather than showing their true views. Still it's hugely encouraging to see such important topics getting a look in for once. The quite brilliant Ray Barry of Father 4 Justice will be one of the guests, so I'm sure it will be well worth watching.
If you're reading this after Sunday remember you'll still be able to watch the show on iPlayer up to a week after broadcast.
Topics: The Rights of Man | Comments
Woods responders concerned about domestic violence
| Contributor: | Men's Activism News [source] | |
| Date: | March 12, 2010 |
Story here. Excerpt:
'ORLANDO, Fla. – The ambulance crew that responded after golfer Tiger Woods crashed his SUV would not allow his wife to ride with him to the hospital because they thought it was a case of domestic violence, documents released Friday by the Florida Highway Patrol show.
But a police officer who responded said he didn't know where the crew got that information because he never heard it from anyone at the scene.
The reports also show that Woods' wife, Elin, turned over two bottles of pain pills to troopers after the Nov. 27 crash outside the couple's suburban Orlando home.
Tiger Woods crashed his sport utility vehicle into a fire hydrant at 2:30 a.m., and officers found him lying in the street. The SUV had a broken window and the couple told investigators Elin Woods had broken it with a golf club so she could unlock a door and pull him out.'
Topics: Men's Activism News | Comments
Illustration of how the news media unquestioningly believes false rape claims are actual rapes
| Contributor: | False Rape Society [source] | |
| Date: | March 12, 2010 |
STORY ONE: Attempted rape leads to Lower Hutt manhunt
Lower Hutt police are searching for two men following an attempted rape this morning.
[FRS COMMENT: Note it wasn't an "alleged" attempted rape. It was an attempted rape in fact.]
A 20-year-old woman was pushed over and indecently assaulted as she was making her way from Farmers Crescent to the Pomare Train Station around seven o'clock.
[FRS COMMENT: The woman "was" pushed over, not "allegedly was pushed over."]
Detective Sergeant Dean Simpson says the two men believed to be responsible for the attack were last seen running south down Eastern Hutt Rd.
[FRS COMMENT: The only question is the identity of the male perpetrators, not whether the act occurred.]
Both are described as male Maori, aged 18 to 20, of thin to average build and approximately 5'7 to 5'8 tall. One was wearing a black hoodie with the hood up and the other wore a white t-shirt.
[FRS COMMENT: Ah, as W.S. Gilbert would say, this merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. The imaginations of some of these rape liars are astounding in terms of inventing details. Now imagine if you were one of the hundreds of males in the vicinity who matched this description. I suspect you wouldn't be happy with everyone looking at you as a possible rapist.]
Detective Sergeant Simpson says the victim has been left traumatised by the attack.
[FRS COMMENT: The definite "victim" was definitely "traumatised" by the definite "attack."]
Link: http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=172317
______________________________________
STORY TWO: Wellington train station rape 'false complaint'
LATEST: An alleged attempted rape at a Lower Hutt train station this morning was a false complaint, according to police.
[FRS COMMENT: Now, after the truth is known, the news outlet calls it an "alleged" attempt. Why couldn't the earlier story had included that one simple word that would have made it accurate?]
A woman, 20, had claimed she was sexually assaulted while walking to catch the train at Pomare station shortly before 7am.
[FRS COMMENT: Guess what? In the earlier story she had only "claimed" she was raped, too, but that's not how it was reported, was it? And why not? It is difficult to fathom that the news media is so unsophisticated that it assumes every rape allegation is true? Or is it more likely that it has an ideological, politically correct motivation to treat every alleged sexual assault as an actual assault?]
The station was closed till 7.45am while police conducted a scene examination.
[FRS COMMENT: Note the obvious: the police aren't dumb enough to take the word of a rape accuser without more. They actually go out and investigate. Funny, we thought that's what journalists were supposed to do, too. Shows how dumb we are.]
Police said this afternoon the woman admitted while being interviewed that she made a false complaint.
[FRS COMMENT: Do you get it? In the eyes of the news media, a reported rape is a rape-in-fact so long as a woman says so. She alone has the power to release the community from its grip of fear about a scary young male with a dangerous penis on the loose. And too often, she alone has the power to release an innocent young male wrongly arrested for a rape that never occurred. Why? Because the news media -- because ALL OF US -- are too ready to assume guilt on the basis of nothing more than an accusation. The news media ought to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us -- it's their job to report the truth, isn't it?]
Link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3439062/Wellington-train-station-rape-false-complaint
Topics: False Rape Society | Comments
In Ontario, Equally Shared Parenting Gets a Boost
| Contributor: | Glenn Sacks [source] | |
| Date: | March 12, 2010 |
Read this article on Glenn's Web site
Topics: Glenn Sacks |
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