Important Interview With Aaron Russo

[Racoon]

Thought I would post this interview.. politically pertinent .

Aaron Russo, says whats right on.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel#p/f/3/N3NA17CCboA

[geko]

Although i think Alex Jones does himself a disservice with the way he presents his media, as it's probably fair to say that the majority of people see his stuff as conspiracy based, there isn't actually much wrong with this talk and i make no qualms about supporting the purpose. There's a few inaccuracies with the details though and it's also a little conspiracy minded with Rockefeller new world order stuff but none of this stuff is actually new and there's no conspiracy here really. Anyway, I wish to point out a few things here for clarity as this is something i'm particularly interested in myself so hopefully i don't send too many people to sleep.

 

First and foremost i think we should have a look at the claim that "the bankers are the problem". Many people seem to be thinking this as of late and it probably has some emotional resonance with a lot of us so let's clear it up. Central banks, the places where money is created (credit, fiat, or otherwise), are public not private. Governments have control of the printing presses and it's illegal for a private institution to print money, whether with a sovereign stamp or otherwise. Money is created (by the government), usually electronically as credit money, and loaned out through the banks to, in the most part, borrowing companies.

 

Due to the size of the credit amounts this has a number of consequences, but the one that concerns us here is inflation. Inflation, as is mentioned in the video, is a consequence of an increase in the money supply. Prices don't go up in a progressing economy, they go down. The price increase you see in your home over a certain period is not due to the "value" of the property going up but rather due to the value of the money you hold going down. All other goods are the same. (to be fair, property would actually increase in value over the long term but very slowly, the same as all goods with a limited supply growth). But, the purpose of inflation shouldn't be seen as an "evil conspiracy" but rather as the means used to redistribute wealth from x to y. Sure, it's theft, i don't deny that, it's always theft but there's no conspiracy here. Shows like this speak of the new world order as if it's something new and unknown, when really it's just the ideology under which the world is run. The FED (to remain with the US), pumps credit to grow the economy, businesses borrow this money and invest, these businesses see huge profits due to huge investment before they see costs due to the way accounting works, they therefore see these large profits as if their business is booming, they then invest more and pay higher prices for goods and services because their [perceived] margins have increased. This effect cherry chains through all businesses pushing all prices and profits up. Sovereign countries then report nice and healthy GDP growth year on year. This, and only this, is the reason "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". It's not a conspiracy, it's macro market stimulation, otherwise known as Keynesian economics, and it's this that "runs the world" in the macro, and marxist economics that runs it in the micro. They are both flawed philosophies and have been shown to be so for many years, the reason they are followed is due to them being the perfect mediums to push through wealth redistribution, the effect of which is to keep everybody, in the main, poor and broke (and tax income of course). If you take away this macro market stimulation governments wouldn't be able to run since taxes cannot keep up with infrastructure maintenance never mind public growth and production (which isn't production but rather consumption but that's a different story). The FED is not a consequence of the system/approach as the video mentions, but the answer they came up with to the problem of how to stimulate and gain value.

 

Another thing to mention about the video is the angle of approach to the arguments. There are two ways to argue for liberty and freedom, one is a rights based approach the other is consequentialist. To argue from a rights based perspective as the chap does here is completely pointless. I wish it was that easy, and don't get me wrong i don't wish to appear condescending and i actually feel for people like this as in their minds, like it used to be in mine, it's oh so simple… "you have no right to point guns at me and extract my life energy to give to group x that you have deemed more worthy than i", but alas, your qualifiable human rights are stripped from you at the point of a gun. If you don't like it, tough. The two rights that we have, life and property we've procured through our [non-coercive] life energy, are stripped because the right of individual x to have free education, health, clean water, and a slew of others is deemed as more worthy. Yes, their arguments are totally rights-based. They have nothing else. Ours on the other hand cannot be rights-based because our "inalienable rights" are ignored and shunned so therefore the approach will get us no where. Obviously though, these two rights must be ignored to provide others with these other rights because of the simple fact that nothing in the world is free; to provide someone with free education, for example, someone else must have had their rights removed in order to pay for it. This leaves us the consequentialist approach, which still wins by the way, as long as people are willing to listen, which brings us to another point in the video.

 

It's mentioned that people need "the courage to do what's necessary". So let's ask the question of what is necessary? It's a tricky question. You can't pick up guns to bring forth freedom, it just leads to more social despotism and intervention. It's also mentioned that people need to, in effect, "stand up and be counted and tell 'the government' that we're not going to take it anymore". These are noble sentiments but we have a problem. What are people going to do? Do they need to educate themselves on political parties and the consequential nuances of proposed policies? That sounds good in theory and is the idea behind direct democracy as opposed to representative, but it's never going to work. Why? Because people don't have the time, nor the inclination in a lot of cases, to learn the ins and outs of this stuff, and further, they shouldn't be expected to. People have busy enough lives as it is without having to wade through several hundred political manifestos year on year. Even politicians don't know the consequences of their policies, nor are they interested in a lot of cases, because the purpose of policies are the fiscal time blocks of their representation. If politicians, an individual who's job it is, in theory, to be a specialist on consequential policy, don't get to the bottom of things what hope does the average citizen have? Very little. And since it's not the individual citizen that we require to be savvy on this stuff but rather whole populations to be savvy, the attempt at education should be, reasonably speaking, abandoned now. Individuals should be allowed to direct countries in the only reasonable, and fitting, way open to them, and that's with their wallet. They can be expected to know the consequences of buying product A on their life and happiness far more than they can be expected to know the consequences of policy B on their life and happiness. This is why capitalism, yes capitalism, is THE method open to our race for increased happiness, well-being and value satisfaction in the long term. It directs resources, which are perpetually limited and scarce, into the most highly valued areas, which by extension will likely turn into highly productive areas, in the most efficient manner. It's not an alien race that does this, it's us. Capitalism works irrespective of motive. Forget all the nonsense you've heard about how capitalism leads to serfdom and suffering. It's complete twaddle expounded by people who either don't know, or who have a vested interest in interventionism. Pressure groups are some of the biggest hurdles to freedom, groups such as farmers, unions, and big international business. These are people and groups with huge vested interests; their monopoly status requires it.

 

This post is getting long but there's some other stuff i want to mention which was brought up in the video. First, 'the gold standard'. Just to clarify for people who may be a little confused of the idea, gold, as a standard, is not sought after "because it's gold", but because it's a commodity that people value. Wood, rice, sugar and various others have also been used before. The purpose of standards is to prevent inflation but we don't, necessarily, need to go on a standard to prevent it, but rather to have the amount of money to remain static. Genuine fiat money could also be used. The reason for a commodity (like gold), as a standard is to prevent the supply increasing. If you want more money you need to go and find it and mine it. However, there is enough money in the world right now to pay for everything that anyone will ever want and need. Higher supply is not needed for continued want satisfaction conducive to an individual's time-preference. There's enough today, there was enough yesterday and there will be enough tomorrow.

 

The media…. it's always been controlled, this is nothing new. It's there to sell advertising and to promote favoured policy. It's always been used as an avenue to promote fear in the populace under banners of crime, terrorism, pedophilia, war on drugs etc., in order to chip away at freedom. For hundreds of years this has been known when a sway towards [classical] liberalism started underway in the school of Salamanca and others. Hundreds of years… yet more evidence to assume that people will never know about this stuff so we should stop thinking they should.

 

To end on a personal note, the US constitution is not something to hold up as something to fight towards. In the first instance, it failed. And secondly it was based on a literal statement, not figurative; the "inalienable rights of MAN" referred to white man, not black, not women. And lest we forget the north went to war with the south to maintain the unions, not to abolish slavery.

 

Anyway, that's enough; there's not really any qualification here but rather hopefully some food for thought. I support the cause, thanks for the video link. If people want to KNOW about capitalism then they should read something good on it. Personally i know of no better place to suggest than Capitalism by George Reisman.