'..to take the first concrete steps towards saving Western Civilization.'<blockquote>'As destructive as government interference is in the area of production, it is that much worse in the area of money and credit. Every aspect of production and trade depends on money, so distortions in this area are magnified. Unfortunately, the government has distorted the monetary system so badly that both are accelerating towards destruction.
The solution, and the only hope for civilization, is to rediscover the principles of free markets, particularly on the monetary realm, and begin returning to a gold standard. (page 6)
..
Socialism has yet another ill side effect. It does not permit the entrepreneur to exist. While most men work at producing goods and services using tools and principles that were previously discovered, an entrepreneur works to discover new ways of doing old work more efficiently, and new work that is more valuable to do. Rather than focusing on the best way to raise and care for horses, entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford focused on how to replace horses with cars.
The entrepreneur can only operate if he has the freedom to innovate, even if his innovation offends people (such as managers of existing enterprises). The entrepreneur does not function under orders. You cannot manage the entrepreneur and tell him what to do, in what order, and when. Even aside from the contradiction of trying to force a mind to think, the would-be dictator does not know what orders to give..
..
There is no particular limit to the improvements on productivity, or entirely new kinds of products and services that man can devise and bring to market. This is because there is no particular limit to the ability of man’s mind to form abstractions from concretes, and to form abstractions from abstractions.
And likewise, there is no limit to the collapse of civilization if thugs or even “well intentioned experts” seek to seize control of the means of production and attempt to centrally plan the economy. Ultimately, the division of labor is not possible without the coordination made possible by the information embedded in prices. And without the division of labor, man reverts to a mean level of subsistence. (page(s) 10 & 11)
..
8. Our Modern Monetary MaladyDistortion in other areas of the economy is damaging enough, but distortion in the monetary system is much worse because the monetary system affects all economic activity. One would have to subsist in the wilderness to avoid money (and if the monetary system was so distorted as to make it seem attractive to live as a hermit, then no stronger condemnation could be pronounced).
..
These distortions cannot be contemplated in isolation. In aggregate, they create and drive a dynamic which necessarily ends in the destruction of the monetary system, including the banks, pensions, insurers, financial assets, savings of the people, and possibly the government and Western civilization. This author does not believe that the magnitude of the coming collapse can be overstated.
In 2008, total collapse could have occurred. It was averted by the worldwide coordination of many unprecedented actions by every government at every level. Nothing was sacred, not even the rule of law. By dint of expanding their balance sheets several times over in a torrent of liquidity that has not stopped—and cannot be stopped lest the collapse resume—they deferred the crisis. Of course, when it comes, the crisis will be worse than it would have been in 2008, which was worse than the crisis that would have come in 2001, which was worse than the previous episode. (page 68)
..
The root cause of our monetary disease has its origins in the creation of the Fed and other central banks prior to World War I, and in the insane treaty signed in 1944 at Bretton Woods in which many nations agreed for their central banks to use the US dollar as if it were gold, and this paved the way for President Nixon to pound in the final nail in the coffin. He repudiated the gold obligations of the US government in 1971, thereby plunging the whole world into the regime of irredeemable paper. (page 98)
..
..I define inflation as an expansion of counterfeit credit. I define deflation as a forcible contraction of counterfeit credit, and the inevitable consequence of inflation. Well, we have had many decades of rampant expansion of counterfeit credit. Now we will have deflation, and the harder the central banks try to fight it by forcing yet more expansion of counterfeit credit, the worse the problem becomes. With leverage everywhere in the system, it would not take many defaults to wipe out every financial institution. And there will be many defaults.. (page 99)
..
..But for the past several decades, people have been tricked by distorted price signals (including bond prices, i.e. interest rates) into consuming more than they produce. (page 100)
..
If we stay on the present course, I think the outcome will look more like 472 AD than 1929.. (page 101)
..
It is now up to farsighted leaders, especially in government, to take the first concrete steps towards saving Western Civilization.' (page 107)
- Keith Weiner, Dissertation (
pdf), September 2012),
A Free Market for Goods, Services, and Money by Keith Weiner, September 6, 2012</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
((Monetary) bureaucracy) Tsunami of Malinvestment - By Martin Hutchinson
The U.S. Needs More i-Side Economics - By Andy Kessler
Banking Reform</blockquote>