How do we get at the heart of an issue? We can commission an expert to explain what the situation is and suggest a solution. How does that work out? No expert can make a profit by offering a simple solution to a complex issue.
A better method is to break an issue down to its most basic ingredients and find a root cause that makes an expensive sophisticated analysis unnecessary. That is where the fantasy free school of economics comes in.
That is exactly what I do. There is nothing to it but there is one caveat. To do this, one must be in touch with reality. The result is, possessing the Fantasy Free Advantage. .
Lets look at the purpose of taxes in the United States. The purpose of taxes is to raise revenue for the government, right? Is that what the U.S. tax code does and nothing else? Collecting revenue is only a small part of what the tax code is used for, The main purpose of tax legislation is to permit whatever entity that controls government to engineer society in keeping with their best interests.
Taxes are used to change human behavior according to what those in power think good behavior should be, Cigarettes are heavily taxed. I am not endorsing cigarettes.
Taxes are cut as a means of economic stimulus. Corporate taxes are raised and lowered for all kinds of reasons, none of which serve as a means of collecting revenue. A complex tax code makes for certain that the average citizen has no idea what government costs him personally. Spending goes up and personal tax rates remain the same. So, who cares what government spends? Revenue sharing reduces state’s rights. In general – taxes are used more to engineer society than they are used to generate revenue.
Here is the simple solution. Make sure taxes go up when spending increases and go down when spending decreases. That would put an end to out of control government spending. Government spending would plummet.
But, what about social engineering? How has that been going so far? What about stimulus? Stimulus has gotten the United States in the bad economic situation it is in.
Perhaps folks would rather not know what government costs them.
Technical Analysis had its beginnings in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1948, Technical Analysis by Edwards & Mageewas published. For years, this served as the bible of chart analysis. The logic in the book is that fundamental analysis is unproductive because it is impossible to gain enough knowledge about corporations to know more than other value investors. It made sense to study the behavior of investors who used fundamentals as opposed to studying the criteria they were using.
Back in the old days, only a small percentage of investors used chart analysis. Far more trades were long term in nature. This begin changing big time in the 1980s. In today’s markets, most trading is intraday. Technical Analysis became so popular that traders now are not observing the behavior of long term investors. They are unwittingly watching themselves. I was very early in noticing that stock prices were being heavily manipulated. Chart patterns which were quite productive in the past now serve as traps. According to traditional logic, when an uptrend line is broken – that is a signal to sell or to short. In modern times it ushers in a short squeeze and the uptrend is continued. I stopped using technical analysis in 2011. Had I continued, I would probably be homeless.
Technical analysis is still useful when it doesn’t involve a market where assets are trading.
Regular readers, may have read the article, The Coming Tech Train Wreck. That article makes the case for the demise of big tech in days to come. I also wrote an article entitled, How to Take Over the World in the Modern Era This article makes the case that there is in fact, an effort to take over the world by capturing the world’s factors of production by way of the financial markets. The military is now old school. Of course that doesn’t work with China, Russia, Iran and a number of others. The appearance is that these countries will be subdued by way of NATO and the U.S. military.
The elite now face some unexpected headwinds. Tech is falling apart. The public is now slowly fathoming that organized crime has taken over the healthcare industry. Remember buybacks? It now seems a perpetual bull market is not possible. All stock that is treasury stock is working against corporations as stocks fall while they contributed to corporate profits previously.
Here is where technical analysis is useful once again. Look at the chart of social stats over time. It is not at all hard to notice the long term head and shoulders chart of social media in general. My observation is that when that neckline is broken, the party for our betters is over. There will be no corporate world takeover after all. It can’t be done without the influence of big tech.
One oddity with respect to the fantasy free school of economics is that it is too easy. It is so easy, hardly a soul expects it to work. The findings are never close to what is being said in mainstream economics. It takes many hours of study to grasp the popular theories in mainstream economics. Anyone with third grade education can use the fantasy free approach and really arrive at more accurate conclusions than a room full of PHDs.
With the fantasy free approach, at first glance it appears that there are no facts on the table. Truth is that we have the only reliable facts in an argument. For one, we know what incentive each actor has. It is self interest. Now, how complicated is that? It is so simple that it gets dismissed. Like others, we can easily see that power corrupts. On an almost universal basis, others live their lives as if the opposite is true. We recognize what is self – evident. Usually, that is completely apparent. Finally, we don’t doubt what we see.
Simple solutions get no respect. There is a reason for this. We live in a world of experts, many of whom are legitimate. So, why do smart people never offer simple solutions? Very simply, simplicity doesn’t pay. Who would pay an economist to say, the best thing government can do right now is absolutely nothing? A certain degree of complexity is needed to add value to the business of problem solving.
A good question is, who can afford experts? In many cases, hardly anyone can. In many cases, the government pays experts enormous prices and then offers their services to the public at a bargain basement price. This is the standard in healthcare. In these cases, it is political power and not price that determines an expert’s pay.
Fantasy free economic is so simple, the technique doesn’t command a price at all.
I am going to use the new Chinese balloon phenomenon to show how to use natural law to explain an occurrence to create likely scenarios.
All of a sudden we notice Chinese balloons floating in the sky in numerous spots in our sky over the United States. Why in the world would China want even one balloon hovering over the United States of America? Is it just because the Chinese like balloons and like to know they are up there? Personally, I imagine their reason is more serious than just the entertainment balloons provide. Continue reading →
I first knew that organized crime was running government in 2008, just by looking at the congressional vote on the bill. Why? Congress passed the bill with close to 100 percent in favor. It was a controversial bill. The population was close to 100 percent against. TARP was passed over the loud objections of voters. This kind of bill could never be passed without some coercive force making sure that it did.
Since that time I have written numerous articles making the case that the mob runs government. These articles are posted below. Continue reading →
These are some of the most lethal fantasies, given the situation the United State is in today.
The President and members of congress run for office because they are committed to serving humanity.
Self interest is the only reason anyone runs for office. In large aggregations of people, self interest is the only incentive. It takes highly unlikely human attributes to win an election. The competition to win is ruthless. Only the most ruthless can prevail. World leaders, including the United States president must be sociopaths. Otherwise they have no chance of winning. Continue reading →
You may have noticed that my focus is always on the overall scheme of things. People and institutions are studied according to how they function and not how they are defined. Numbers are fine and have their place. I look at the forces in nature that make the numbers what they are. Everything is observed in the light of reality as opposed to looking through the prism of fantasy. With that said, there is something I notice in the current time frame that may prove to be significant. Continue reading →
There are two ways to look at people and institutions. The first way is to go by the official definition of an entity. The fantasy free advantage instead goes by the way people and institutions function. In the United States according by definition, we have taxation with representation. The way taxation works in real life is that there is no representation. We do in fact have a system of taxation without representation.
The following is all that is written about taxation in the United States Constitution.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
A lot of mileage is gotten out of the phrase “general welfare.” In real life, that means there is no upper limit on taxation or spending. Just about anything can be deemed as being for the general welfare. All of the sinister actions taken with the corona virus certainly fall into the category of “for the general welfare.” Continue reading →
The United States exists under the guidance of the United States Constitution, ostensibly. Do you remember the Tea Party movement? Back in the day, I attended a number of Tea Party meetings but never joined. At any meeting you could just about count on at least one well thought out rant about the constitution. You would hear a similar rants about imposing term limits. With that, how close is the country to abiding by the constitution now? What progress has been made in imposing term limits?
The problem with enforcing the constitution is that there is honestly no way to do it. The writers of the constitution did not include a method of enforcement. Any law can be passed. It is deemed constitutional unless someone challenges the law and spends countless dollars struggling through the legal system, to have the issue settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has no natural authority to decide constitutional issues. It is only assumed and accepted that it does. As long as the Supreme Court decides if laws are constitutional or unconstitutional, there will be multitudes of laws that would be rendered unconstitutional otherwise.
As you know, employing the fantasy free advantage, requires studying people and institutions according to how they function and not how they are defined. The Supreme Court genuinely is a political institution. Justices are picked because of their political views. The logic of the court fluctuates based on the political composition of the court.
In our system, which is based on democratic principles, only one institution has been successful in carrying out its intended purpose successfully . That is the jury system. Would folks who sit on a jury be sophisticated enough to understand legal arguments relevant to the constitution? The knee jerk reaction is to say. No! Legal experts who understand the law are needed!
Never mind that citizen jurors decide capital murder cases and cases that involve national security. Does anyone want to rely on verdicts handed down from the bench? Suppose there was either a constitutional amendment or federal statute establishing a citizen’s court. Any new law would have to be approved by a jury of ordinary people before it could go into effect. It would also be good if the citizens court could evaluate the constitutionality of any old law, if asked to.
A citizen’s court could also decide other important questions such as: Is it a worthy law? Is there a net benefit to the country as a whole or do the benefits go to a select few?
There would be prosecutors devoted to deeming laws unconstitutional or unworthy. Attorneys would argue that the law should go into effect.
If such a system was implemented, it would be necessary to have at least as many jurors as there are seats in the U,S. House of Representatives. It would also be necessary to pay the jurors very well. It would be necessary to pick them at random.
If the citizens forced congress to pass a citizens court law, there would be no reason to impose term limitations. Why? With the path to power and wealth removed from holding office, it would be hard to get candidates to run much less remain in office.
In a country where citizens have adopted government as their guardian, what are the chances, the same folks would insist on a path towards citizens governing
A Statute For The Media
Benjamin Franklin’s quote was that democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. The logic here is the concern that the poor would vote the treasury into their pockets at the expense of the rich. That was a genuine concern. As time has passed, it turns out that that is not a concern after all. While the poor are massive in number, they never organize and never have lobbied for benefits. The poor do get benefits. Benefits for the poor have all been brain children of their betters.
The founding fathers never fathomed that the media would be broadcast nationally. They certainly didn’t imagine ownership and control of the media would become so concentrated that the rich could control the thoughts and behaviors of the poor and everyone else. It turns out that by way of concentrated power, the rich are able to bleed the poor in ways early to fears that the poor would bleed the rich.
In order to have a well functioning free market system, the government must insure a fair even playing field.
The remedy to media manipulation to control others, is to pass a federal statute stating that a media company cannot be a subsidiary of another entity. In other words, the media must own itself. If that were the case, it would be hard to control media activities from a single or consolidated source.
The greatest fear present in the world today is on the parts of the elite who control government and all who are elected to office. Their fear is that the masses will discover they don’t need them. Hence, massive coordinated censorship.
There are 443 federal government agencies. Can anyone name them? Continue reading →
