Government Securities
Jim Davies
2010-07-26 03:00
By Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
Those who lend money to the government participate in a fraud, for all of them know that it has only one way ultimately to pay either interest or principal: by stealing it. So if they ever lose it (and they will, as below) there will be no sympathy from this quarter.
They do the lending by purchasing municipal bonds and Treasury Bills,...
A Lion in Daniel's Den
Jim Davies
2010-07-19 03:00
By Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
The abrupt termination of the distinguished, six-decade career of Helen Thomas, after she expressed her opinion about Jews on May 27th, has something fishy about it. There are layers of deception to be uncovered, and since nobody else has removed them, I will make the attempt. You read it here first.
Until that day, there had been no...
Porcupines
Jim Davies
2010-07-07 03:00
By Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
In June I had the pleasure of visiting PorcFest 2010, a friendly festival of freedom-seekers held in Northern New Hampshire; so far north that, had one traveled much further, one would have entered Her Majesty's jurisdiction. One of her subjects had in fact come south, from his freedomain somewhere near the North Pole, to enhance the Festival;...
One Cheer for Obama!
Jim Davies
2010-06-15 03:00
By Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
Normally I give politics all the close attention it deserves, which is to say, next to none; but I've been unable to avoid the thick layers of hypocrisy that have been oozing out of the Mexican Gulf since BP's blowout preventer failed to prevent a blowout.
At once, it was plain that an awful tragedy was looming. Not just the tragedies of...
Quake
Jim Davies
2010-03-15 03:00
Exclusive to STR
Among the welter of news reports about the recent tragedy in Haiti, I noticed a couple that were quite perceptive. As it happens, they both broke surface on the PBS News Hour.
One came a few days after January 12th from David Brooks, the Hour's token conservative. He observed that a slightly more severe earthquake had hit San Francisco and Oakland in 1989, which brought...
Half Full
Jim Davies
2010-01-21 04:00
Exclusive to STR
I've been re-reading a couple of excellent, recent articles on Strike The Root, each of which in its way predicts a gloomy future.
One is Glen Allport's "Year Ahead" and the other, Tzo's "Got Money?. Glen provides us as usual with a wealth of evidence to prove his point, piling one piece atop another until there can be no doubt of the message...
Oslo
Jim Davies
2009-12-15 17:00
Exclusive to STR
There's no doubt of it, Obama is one of the world's two best orators of the last hundred years, and his performance at the December 10th ceremony was stellar. Was there a teleprompter? I didn't see him even glance at a set of notes, yet the delivery was flawless. To his credit also is the way his speech addressed head-on an irony of the occasion; here was the world's...
Duty
Jim Davies
2009-12-07 17:00
Exclusive to STR
The word comes in two flavors, and I'd like to focus on the second; but both derive from the Latin debere, meaning to owe--hence also a "debit" to an account. In most common use, the word has to do with an obligation, contractual or moral; it is alleged for example that by some mysterious means everyone has incurred a duty to serve one's country, as in JFK's...
Handouts
Jim Davies
2009-11-15 17:00
Exclusive to STR
One of the debates among liberty seekers is about the extent to which it's morally right to accept or reject government handouts. In my opinion, it's one of a rather small number of issues still open to valid debate, and for sure there are good, sincere people on both sides of it and I respect all of them. Although these remarks come down clearly on one side, that respect...
Marbury
Jim Davies
2009-11-04 17:00
Exclusive to STR
There's a legal case which changed the face of America, and which poisons a great deal of contemporary life; it's known as Marbury v. Madison, and was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in 1803. That was the year the Judicial Branch drove through the gaping hole left for it by Article Three of the Constitution (which gives it very few powers and...
Origins
Jim Davies
2009-10-25 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Where and when did government start? It's quite a mystery. Given that human beings are basically harmless creatures, how did it happen that an inherently violent institution arose in human society, whose whole raison d'tre is always to destroy the fundamental human right of self-governance? The question is important not just to satisfy historical understanding, but to...
Human Nature
Jim Davies
2009-10-14 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Recently some friends and I discussed the nature of hom sap so as better to understand how it could be that the violent institution of government could appear from nowhere, back before writing was invented. Are we good, or evil, or neither?
We didn't reach full agreement, but the subject was given a new boost by B.R. Merrick's recent fine thought-provoker, The Heart of...
A Terminological Exactitude
Jim Davies
2009-09-16 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Standards of parliamentary civility are maintained in the Mother of them all in London by a convention that excludes the following words from the floor of that House: blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, ignoramus, liar, rat, swine, stoolpigeon, and traitor. Her cousin in Belfast prohibits calling members papish bigots and protestant bigots, to disguise the fact...
Insuring Health
Jim Davies
2009-08-17 16:00
Exclusive to STR
My father worked all his life for one company, a prestigious insurance firm in the UK. He began from school as an entry-level clerk, and ended up its Branch Manager in the city of Worcester, where the well-known sauce is made. In all that time, he made only one key mistake of which I'm aware.
Soon after he took over the Worcester branch, he came up with a plan for a new product....
Airport Conversation
Jim Davies
2009-08-11 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Last week I waited for a Westbound flight to be called, from a gate in London Heathrow, and happened to sit next to a black lady, somewhat overweight, in a dark uniform. I made conversation with, "Are you joining this flight?"
"No," she said, "I work here"--meaning, presumably, Heathrow. "I'm a profiler."
"Really?" I said, in my...
Gulches
Jim Davies
2009-06-14 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Stewart Browne's recent, eloquent column here about the need to secede reminded me of the long-running debate among freedom-seekers about the best (or at least, the most feasible) way to establish a free society: (1) to attract libertarians to populate a small independent area, a marked-off Government-Free Zone (GFZ) of some kind in which statists would have no place, or (2) to...
Beyond Rand
Jim Davies
2009-05-20 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Larken Rose is best known for his courage in resisting the supposed US "income tax," which is enforced without having been written into law; and suffered imprisonment for encouraging folk to take advantage of the fact. Recently, however, he has taken to writing novels, and his latest, called The Iron Web, has nothing to do with the i-tax but much to do with our...
What If the Sky Falls?
Jim Davies
2009-05-14 16:00
Exclusive to STR
As Alex Knight reminded us a few months ago, there are those who say the present recession will get worse, ending perhaps in a general breakdown of society complete with food riots and martial law; and last week an STR reader poll revealed that as many as 85% of us think that the March stock market bottom was not the bottom at all, that the Dow will go lower yet after what may...
A Measure of Freedom
Jim Davies
2009-04-06 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Quite rightly, we tend to focus here mostly on what is happening today, rather than long ago. However, to do that all the time is a pity, for it robs us of historical perspective, which can be quite valuable. For example, consider: Are we more free today, than our forebears were in the 1900s? How can we tell? Does it matter?
I think it may matter, because if we can measure...
A Denarius for Your Thoughts
Jim Davies
2009-03-22 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Britain has turned out some pretty good mathematicians over the years, and one reason may be the complexity of its old currency system, which we were expected to understand by the age of six or so. Its structure was that of Pounds, Shillings and Pence; symbolized £, s and d and pronounced LSD (which may be why Brits of my generation did not all immediately tune in to...
Greener Grass?
Jim Davies
2009-03-05 04:00
Exclusive to STR
The screeching from our gloom and doomster friends on the Right has become deafening in recent months: they say the US dollar is on the very verge of collapse!
It's monotonous, and I usually just hit the "delete" button. Occasionally, though, when the mood takes me, I reply with some such innocent question as "When?" or "To be replaced by what?" or...
Misallocation
Jim Davies
2009-02-23 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Nine or ten thousand years ago, mankind began to plow fields. I don't know what tools he used--perhaps some kind of wooden spades or trowels, fashioned with flint from a cedar of Lebanon; but somehow he turned the earth and cereal seeds were planted and some months later his little society had something to eat--without having had to strike camp and move along every few days or...
Geithner, Killefer, Daschle & Schiff
Jim Davies
2009-02-15 17:00
Exclusive to STR
No, that's not the name of a distinguished firm of tax lawyers with a German flavor, and no, Irwin Schiff has not been offered a place in the Obama Cabinet. That would be the day! He did once run for President, with a cute little red plastic cowboy hat adorning the heads of his Libertarian Party supporters, but delegates instead nominated Harry Browne, who did a very creditable...
Law and Ethics: Unrelated
Jim Davies
2009-02-04 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Like all good STR articles, the recent one by Marcel Votluka got me thinking.
It got me thinking about what laws are, and what an ethic is when it's at home. Both purport to be about behavior--harmony between humans--so we expect them to coincide well and are surprised when they don't. However, I take the opposite view, and express surprise when they do. An examination of what...
Inflation?
Jim Davies
2009-01-07 17:00
Exclusive to STR
You'll be wondering about that question mark.
As Dave Barry so accurately put it, '. . . the troubled 'big three' auto makers . . . ask Congress for $25 billion, explaining that if they don't get the money, they will be unable to continue making cars that Americans are not buying.' Others suggest that once bailed-out, the Big Three will no longer make cars, but will just keep...
Public Works Don't
Jim Davies
2009-01-04 17:00
Exclusive to STR
A financial report I encountered says that "President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, has said his first priority will be to pass an economic stimulus plan that will invest in public works and create or save 3 million jobs." I don't doubt that it's accurate, and so am horrified.
One thing he and his admirers have glossed over is that almost the entire...
Night
Jim Davies
2008-12-28 17:00
Exclusive to STR
There's a very remarkable short book I recommend, called simply Night. It tells in the first person what happened to a young boy after he and his family were taken to Auschwitz from their home in a small Hungarian town in 1944.
After a grueling train trip, everyone was segregated by gender and Elie waved farewell to his mother and three sisters. The two elder ones survived, as he...
Barry Sotero
Jim Davies
2008-12-07 17:00
Exclusive to STR
I can see four things wrong with the following provision of the US Constitution:
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been...
M
Jim Davies
2008-12-02 17:00
Exclusive to STR
No, this is not about a newly-discovered manuscript by Ian Fleming, revealing more amazing exploits of Agent 007 and his mysterious boss; it's about the even more mysterious subject of money; specifically, about how much of it will be needed in the coming free society.
Some may feel that's rather theoretical, but I have little patience with such a view. If we are serious about...
Ponzi Reconsidered
Jim Davies
2008-11-18 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Charles Ponzi achieved in his lifetime something very rare: his surname became part of the English Language. Thomas Crapper did that in the 1860s, when he developed and marketed the modern toilet, and so did Sir Robert Peel when he organized the British police; to this day, agents of that force may be called "bobbies" or sometimes "peelers." But how many other...
A Novel Takes Flight
Jim Davies
2008-11-12 17:00
Exclusive to STR
George F. Smith, a regular fellow contributor to Strike The Root, has written a crackerjack novel which all here will enjoy, and could acquire to give or lend to friends whose interest in the great money swindle may have been piqued by the recent $750 billion government "failout." With the intriguing title The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, it's a cleverly crafted...
Farewell, Marshall
Jim Davies
2008-11-06 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Marshall Fritz died November 4th, and the freedom movement is the poorer.
While living, Marshall was larger than life. Large physically, this remarkable man had that mysterious quality, a "presence," that would dominate whatever group he entered--in a benevolent way, of course. To the extent that curmudgeonly individualist libertarians have a leader, he was it. And now...
A Dollar in Peril
Jim Davies
2008-11-02 17:00
Exclusive to STR
One of the nice things about not voting is that one can enjoy a little sport at the expense of those who do. Let me share with you an example or three.
A few days before November 4th, I visited a nearby town, and first called at the government postal monopoly for some stamps so that I could write to an innocent friend incarcerated in a government prison. Standing in line, I said...
"Crash Course" Caveats
Jim Davies
2008-10-28 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Recently an "Editor's Pick" here recommended a no-charge Flash presentation by Chris Martenson about the next 20 years, appropriately called The Crash Course. I endorse that; it's outstanding. I've seen many presentations, but never one more professionally delivered. Further, its 2 ' hour total viewing time is split into 21 short parts, so as to make it easy to absorb...
Fiat Folly
Jim Davies
2008-09-23 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Everyone seems to agree that the mess in the money trade stems from profligate mortgage lending half a decade ago; banks loaned large sums to people with poor credit rating, then sold the mortgages in bundles with other, better-quality notes, then those were resold throughout the industry, and so when some borrowers failed to repay to the terms agreed, everyone was stuck with bad...
Time for a Trim?
Jim Davies
2008-09-09 16:00
Exclusive to STR
There's no shortage of complaints about government, nor will there ever be for as long as they may be expressed without penalty; though that may not be too long a period, Amendment #1 notwithstanding. Here's the twist: I'm going to name a few of the more common, current ones, and show simply what might be a possible resolution of each. Then I'm going to ask whether the sum of...
Tail of a Dog
Jim Davies
2008-08-28 16:00
Exclusive to STR
There are a lot of good folk out there who think civilization is being run--badly--by the Bilderbergers and their friends.
They point to such sources as G. Edward Griffin's The Creature From Jekyll Island which documents how the Federal Reserve Bank was set up a century ago, and conclude that since the Fed holds the purse strings, it governs the government; that hence, we are all...
November Games
Jim Davies
2008-07-17 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Bob Barr was not an ideal choice for libertarians, but he got the nod, so he's the only person likely to be on most ballots in November offering a freedom-ish alternative to the two War Party candidates. His platform is halfway decent, it has a lot of good stuff. Here, however, is one form of words prominently missing, in his segment on "Taxes":
"Taxation is theft...
Poised to Implode
Jim Davies
2008-07-17 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Government is doomed. The whole miserable apparatus of local, State and Federal politicos, liars, thieves, pimps, bullies and bureau-rats will disappear a couple of decades hence and a few years later, the peoples of every other country in the world will follow our example. Those of us who understand why it has to go are now, happily, equipped to make it happen.
A few weeks ago...
Gas Puzzler
Jim Davies
2008-07-08 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Soon after landing on American soil, I found myself lining up for gasoline for 45 minutes, and that told me something was wrong with this land of free enterprise. When all the establishment media I could lay hands on failed to explain the shortage, I knew it was worse. When only a fringe magazine (The Libertarian Review, July/August 1979, with outstanding articles by D.T....
Avalanche
Jim Davies
2008-06-09 16:00
Exclusive to STR
I've been peering into my crystal ball again, trying to see what government might do to impede a peaceful Anarchist Revolution when it awakens to the fact that one is under way. This is to give you a quick overview, and especially to ask any reader to jump in to the STR Forum, or just email me directly, if he thinks of any kind of hostile action the parasites might take, in the...
E-Day
Jim Davies
2008-05-26 16:00
Exclusive to STR
I'll not tell you the date, but based upon a very few simple and well-grounded assumptions, it will fall in the year 2027. "E-Day" is the day that all government in America will evaporate because, having gained a proper understanding of its nature, nobody will be willing any longer to work for it on any terms; tens of millions will have done what a certain DMV employee...
Evil
Jim Davies
2008-04-27 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Ever since I was nine years old, I've had huge respect for the writer Arthur Ransome. Some here will recognize him as the author of a delightful series of children's books starting with Swallows and Amazons, good for reading at any age and full of wholesome stuff; siblings in each of several families are portrayed, discovering and practising virtues like respect, self-reliance,...
Biggest Bang for the CD Buck
Jim Davies
2008-04-14 16:00
Exclusive to STR
Civil Disobedience, or CD, is spectacular and scary and costly and courageous and inspiring, all of the above, but as I suggested in the case of Gandhi, not necessarily effective. Still, there are some occasions when it may be useful.
CD means the deliberate flouting of a government law, usually in plain view. Some refused to register for the draft, when it was operating; they...
Utopia
Jim Davies
2008-03-27 17:00
Exclusive to STR
"Utopia" can be defined as "any visionary system of political or social perfection," but we most often hear it in the derogatory sense of "an impractical, idealistic scheme for social and political reform," and it falls thus from the lips of those walnut-brained idiots to whom we've just earnestly explained our vision of how a free-market society...
The Speech That Eliot Never Gave
Jim Davies
2008-03-12 17:00
Exclusive to STR
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is for me the most difficult press conference I've ever held, though not for the reasons you may be supposing. The fact is that I am--for the first time ever--going to tell you the truth. We shall see tomorrow, from your reports and broadcasts, whether you can handle the truth.
"It is, of course, no small thing for the Governor of the Empire...
451 F
Jim Davies
2008-03-06 17:00
Exclusive to STR
"Why is the number of your squad 451?" asked the girl on the train, of the blond fireman in his smart uniform. His answer: "Because in Fahrenheit, that's the temperature at which the pages of books catch fire."
Yes, it's true, I just watched a 42-year-old movie, "Fahrenheit 451" and enjoyed it a lot. It falls short here and there, and isn't up to the...
Why Minarchism Cannot Cut It
Jim Davies
2008-02-28 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Recently Dr. Gary North, the well-known Libertarian predictor of catastrophes large and small, wrote a thought-provoking article entitled "Non-Negotiable Political Demands" in which he listed seventeen. It's worth reading the original, because it's as vigorous an expression of the Classical Liberal position as I can recall reading, and at first sight we can say "...
Religion
Jim Davies
2008-02-17 17:00
Exclusive to STR
This is the last in my series of eight reports from the year 2030 about life in our newly-free society. I hope you've enjoyed them so far, and although they are rightly very upbeat, I hope you also agree they included "warts and all"--that they came without unjustified bias. If so, I also hope you'll be hungering and thirsting to help make it happen. Of course, with the...
Travel
Jim Davies
2008-02-07 17:00
Exclusive to STR
We move around, in this newly-free America, for the usual reasons: to visit family, to find business or employment, and for the delight of seeing all the amazing, spectacular beauties this great land has to show. The big difference is that since E-Day, there has been nobody to stop or hinder us.
Forty years ago there was a TV miniseries produced called Amerika, with a K. Its...
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