- keep foreign primitives out,
- crucify domestic primitives,
- get out of the way of entrepreneurial dynamism, and
- don't screw with the money (destroy what citizens have built up).
Smith:
There is no way America would be as corrupt as it now is if the Fed hadn't provided trillions of dollars to those most anxious to corrupt every institution that might limit their greed and power. If money wasn't [sic] free, the predators, parasites, zombies and monopolists couldn't borrow such enormous sums to jack up their share price and buy political influence to protect their winnings.As I've pointed out earlier, low interest rates keep stock prices high as well by punishing savers who have to embrace risk-on investments just to try to stay ahead of inflation, let alone enhance their nest eggs.The Fed's policy of permanent, expanding manipulation has picked the winners in our economy--the predators, parasites, zombies and monopolists who use Fed free money to strangle competition, eliminate transparency and corrupt anything that might represent the public interest or the common good, because these are anathema to the predators, parasites, zombies and monopolists.[1]
Mr. Smith put it all together with this article. The money has flowed into the hands of the dregs of society and they buy sociopath politicians and whatever tools they need to protect and increase their power. The interests of George Soros, Sheldon Adelson, Mark Zuckertrucker, the Koch brothers, Google, the Fed, General Electric, Gillette, the courts, the top military brass, and a host of other swine are not OUR interests yet they're out there taking a jackhammer to our bedrock institutions and values.
Notes
[1] "Want Hope and Real Growth? Let the Dead Forest of Corruption and Fed Manipulation Burn Down." By Charles Hugh Smith, ZeroHedge, 11/2/20 (bolding removed).
George Soros, Sheldon Adelson, Mark Zuckertrucker
ReplyDeleteHmm, I wonder what all these maggots have in common?
"government's four most sacred duties:
ReplyDeletekeep foreign primitives out,
crucify domestic primitives,
get out of the way of entrepreneurial dynamism, and
don't screw with the money (destroy what citizens have built up)."
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Of course a cynic, such as myself, would say there are only two:
1) Loot the productive classes
2) Enjoy the exercise of power
Col. Bunny is positing the existence of some fraction of government, or at least a potential somewhere, of doing good. I see no evidence of it. Even the Founders indulged in some slimy crap (real estate schemes, violation of the Articles of Confederation, "internal improvements", etc.)
:-) It's a mystery.
ReplyDeleteMr. Bonneau, cynicism is always appropriate and many rulers and their allies have done exactly that. However, even for those types it takes a special kind of stupid to suck the marrow out of the bones of the people. Killing the golden goose is the operative concept.
ReplyDeleteRealistically, the rulers have to pay lip service to the duties I list, if not more than that. Certain Chinese dynasties possessed limitless power to crucify or rob their subjects but they feared the loss of the Mandate of Heaven. They knew their history and that if the balance shifted too far in the direction of theft and oppression the people could simply spontaneously withdraw their support or their acquiescence. This was double plus ungood for the elites as it meant a new dynasty was in the stars.
Perhaps you will admit that there have been periods and kingdoms where rulers did an ok job. Imperial Russia freed the serfs at one point and managed things so well that Russia was thriving before the catastrophe of WWI. Coolidge was an excellent man who presided over an administration that was very sensitive to what was proper under the Constitution. Henry II effected one of the most amazing transformations when he established royal courts throughout England that provided justice superior to that available in the manorial courts. The Anglo-Saxons appreciated the improvement in justice. The gradual shift to parliamentary supremacy there was also beneficial to the nation as a whole.
The Founders and Ratifiers did yeomen's work in devising an arrangement that preserved liberty and theoretically kept the factions contending with each other rather than lording it over the people. The precise nature of the betrayal of the Court on the basic feature of the Constitution was not foreseeable.
If the Constitutional Conventioneers exceeded their mandate they still made no secret of their work product and the individual colonies were free to reject it. Your objection to the personal failings of certain Founders is fine as far as it goes. If some acted as you state it was a moral failing on their point, not something contrary to the constitutional scheme that they devised. State law was supposed to deal with state depredations.
There's no denying that the Constitution ignited something quite unique and ordinary people prospered as never before though it has, alas, devolved to precisely what you cynically, but accurately, observe. That we are on the brink of moral, economic, social, and political collapse is not a vindication of the proposition that no rulers ever in any place has considered the welfare of his people.