PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash

<p>Reminding people that no one can predict the future is a Fool's Errand; getting a glimpse into what will happen next is one of life's biggest entertainments. That's why soothsayers, such as “public intellectual” Nicholas Taleb, gets away with his ridiculous “systemic risk” argument. That hogwash reasoning is often central to the "we must do something about Climate Change” refrain, an...

<p>The animosity directed towards corporations has been increasing for the past couple of decades, starting about the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. That's not a coincidence; the rise in support for socialism in America requires the demonization of Capitalism, most exemplified in bashing corporations, but leading directly to disdain of business in general. From there, scorn and ridicu...

<p>Capitalism's biggest exploit is to legally steal the savings of everyday people. Corporate raiders leverage the weaknesses of corporate governance to fleece the companies they infect. Their intention is to take out massive loans, draining a floundering company of all equity, then eventually bankrupting, leaving bond-holders and stockholders in the lurch. It's only possible because there a...

<p>Economist Bruce Yandle identified the Baptist & Bootleggers theory of government regulations; it's the combination of self-righteous, highly motivated sanctimonious do-gooders who want control over everyone else's lives, in a blind partnership with the smugglers and underworld interests that benefit by violating new restrictions. There's also the shadowy for-profit interests hiding be...

<p>It's unconscionable for you to sign yourself into slavery or indentured servitude so no court will enforce such a contract, but a Conduct Agreement, which is almost the same thing, is not the same because it isn't about forcing you to remain under contract but instead to dismiss you from one; you don't act like someone tells you to act, you're fired. This makes a Conduct Agreement very et...

<p>Boiled down to its essence, “Rule of Law” means contract enforcement; when someone violates the terms of agreement of a contract, State Violence is there to crush the shirker, and both parties must be held accountable for their parts, with penalties attached for non-performance. In fact, all contracts are really about adjudicating force, so there must be clearly identified goals with meas...

<p>A business is not a person, it is a machine, so can have no morals. In fact, a business should be amoral because morals are subjective, not legally objective, so they cannot be applied nor enforced; it's ridiculous to even try. Ethics are similarly artificial, and have the same fundamental problem of: why should everyone be under the yoke of the ethics of the few? A clear line between peo...

<p>Today's politics swirls around immigration, making the concepts timely:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">Government shirks its duty by making employers responsible for enforcing immigration policy.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">Adverse possession is the...

<p>The U.S. Census is commanded in the U.S. Constitution to be made every 10 years. Besides the actuarial interest it generates, it also has political ramifications because it determines how the 435 U.S. House representatives are allocated among the States, and what Identity Groups receive government money, so it has become a lightening rod of controversy. For example, the next Census is dur...

<p>A couple of times in the past decades, presidents Bush and Obama made the symbolic gesture of sending National Guard troops to the Mexican border to help prevent illegal immigration because the numbers are staggering, over 35,000 arrests a month. Trump did it too when news of an “Immigrant Caravan” started hitting the news. He sent 6,000 troops, but it's kind of a voluntary thing on State...

<p>Americans have been limiting immigration since 1790, and started the immigration service in 1891 to really put the brakes on who was getting into the U.S. They wanted God-fearing Europeans for the most part, and certainly none of those Chinese or more Blacks. However, citizenship still had to be acquired before an immigrant became a full member of society, including voter's rights, but ma...

<p>An immigrant society isn't just a nation with lots of immigrants; without integration, that could easily end up as balkanization, where the society tears itself apart physically. The U.S., the leading nation recently built of immigrants, but also Australia and New Zealand, have all integrated just about anybody who shows up on their shores because a successful immigrant society homogenize...

<p>Open-Borders advocates have lots of reasons why immigration is good, and they will intentionally conflate illegal immigrants with legal ones, grouping them all together as if the same considerations apply. The Democratic Party seems to have taken this position, and most of the mainstream news media. In fact, Democratic candidates and members of congress are already calling for an end of I...

<p>Some pro-immigrant arguments are of the-more-the-merrier variety; they cite studies that conclude that more & more immigrants of any kind make a country wealthier & wealthier. That claim seems easy enough to debunk because, if true, places where refugees go now should be showing signs of wealth & opulence; places like Pakistan, Uganda & Bangladesh. An obvious question woul...

<p>The word “refugee” conjures up preconceptions of starving, huddled masses, living in make-shift tents, and eating charity-supplied rice. There's absolutely nothing good about this image, automatically triggering people's innate sense of pity & altruism. Exploiting sympathy has become a staple of The Left as a way to open borders and eliminate national boundaries, which is why a nation...

<p>Immigration into the U.S. doesn't have to be legally sanctioned, and often isn't. Sneaking over the border in the desert at night, or overstaying a visa may be the most publicized methods, but loopholes in the immigration law also provide entry to sophisticated scofflaws, the most famous being the misunderstood idea that if you are born in the U.S., you are automatically a citizen. Citize...

<p>Immigration, legal or not, is how populations act. You can accept it as fact and look for solutions or you can fight the inevitable with rancor and incivility towards newcomers. Persecution is an unsavory option. Conservatives point at the law as their justification for denial of citizenship, and they believe in punishment for breaking the law, but pragmatism suggests that democracy is fo...

<p>There's a reason poor people from other countries want to live in the United States but the citizenry of the United States has no obligation to them. We can offer charity or not, it's entirely up to us; there's no Pope nor other sanctimonious cretins who can override our will because they are holier-than-us, know-better-n-us, or more-powerful-than-us. If The People don't want to allow ent...

<p>Money is always confusing, so let's review some concepts:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">There are other ways to pay for public services but only taxes can redistribute concentrated wealth.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;&...

<p>Basing dollars on gold to prevent the printing of money is called monetarism: the idea is that there is only so much gold in the world which represents all the wealth in the world: get all the gold, have all the wealth. This misguided and superficial concept of money is easily debunked; for example, every time a bank makes a loan, money was essentially “printed,” no gold involved. Still,...

<p>Why do Libertarians hate The Fed, America's central bank: what does raising and lowering interbank interest rates do that's so damning in their view? It turns out, The Fed also indirectly prints money. The U.S. government can't get “investors” to buy enough Treasuries to cover the budget deficit every year, so The Fed buys them, essentially “printing” money. Under section 14 subsection (b...

<p>Treasuries are government IOUs, now over $21 trillion of debt, but money is imaginary and the money Treasuries supposedly represent doesn't exist anyway, and hasn't for many decades, since America hasn't balanced a budget, nor will it ever again. Obviously, no one needs the money The Debt represents because it's on continuous rollover, like imagining you own pink elephants you never ride....

<p>Employers are required to take income taxes out of employee's paychecks, an especially difficult burden on Small Business because of the accounting, plus the Small Business owner is held responsible if the tax is not paid, even though it's for someone else. Not only is this an inequitable nanny relationship, and a drag on hiring, since only people with significant incomes are going to owe...

<p>Considering how taxes are an everyday part of everyone's lives, few people even know what's going on. Confusion is the biggest cause for suspicion of taxes, especially since they are so arbitrary and uneven. For example, 7 States have no Income tax, and 5 States have no Sales tax. Alaska has neither. In fact, Alaska pays its residents almost $2K a year. Sales tax is the most regressive be...

<p>The 16<sup>th</sup> Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1913, is where federal Income taxes come from; before that, nothing. The fact is, as long as production matches consumption, no taxes are necessary; simply issue money as needed, what's the downside? The knee-jerk reaction to printing more money is always the cry, “inflation!” but why? Does a loaf of bread bec...