Revolution Fire Continues to Rage, What’s wrong with Anarchy?

2/24/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today we can hardly believe our eyes.  What appeared to be a simple revolution in a remote land, Tunisia, has begun a chain of events that may touch every person on the planet before it is through.  We will call it the "Fire" of revolution, at it seems to be catching everywhere.  The grievances of a generation are beginning to be aired in public forums from Tripoli to Madison, Wisconsin.  As you are aware, we are of the opinion that the spark for this fire began it what may appear to be a very far away place.  Washington, D.C.  

While many conspiracy theorists have their own, well, theories, we believe that this is collateral damage from the Federal Reserve's misguided attempt to leave no debt unpaid by simply printing the money up to pay them.  It is simple enough to do in their ivory towers, but the consequences in the real world, in the form of trade and production imbalances, which are sometimes referred to as "Malinvestments," are absolutely and totally destructive to balance in society.

The consequences of printing money are generally felt in two forms.

The most obvious form is what is being seen in Greece and now Wisconsin.  In these cases the government made promises to workers, retirees, and other constituents that they cannot honor.  The governments appear to be doing the honest thing and are effectively defaulting on these promises.  However, they are attempting to default at exactly the wrong moment, as the increased money supply begins to pinch workers in the developed world.  In both cases, many public workers are simply being asked to give up privileges such as the ability to take a long holiday at the beach.  In both cases, we are seeing sometimes violent evidence of just how hard it is for the government to default on its promises.

The less obvious and more damaging form of consequences are what we are seeing in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain and Libya.  In these cases, the governments are not technically defaulting on promises, rather, they are seen as the scapegoats for rapidly rising food costs which threaten to drive many to the point of starvation.  These rising food costs are the indirect result of the governments in the developed world attempting to give their public employees holidays at the beach.  Naturally, with the stakes higher in the developing world, a sense of desperation has set in and the pace of and violence involved in the uprisings is markedly higher.

Today we will go one step further at the risk letting the FED off the hook for sparking these revolutions with their insane monetary policy.  That step is to postulate that the cause of the flood of money and credit which has lead to higher food prices stems from people's unwavering faith in their leaders and/or elected governments.  This unwavering faith, which stems from people's need to feel secure, generates an inertia towards demands for a nanny state, in which the government is expected to take care of every legitimate and some illegitimate needs presented to them by the people. 

This arrangement appears to work very well as long as the government and/or leader appear to have the means to provide for these needs.  This arrangement is also the very reason that the government and/or leader will never have the means to provide for these needs indefinitely.  You see, this arrangement generally discourages productive activity and encourages unproductive activity (commonly known as freeloading and currently justified by vague appeals to any myriad of "rights") which eventually leads to the shortages and imbalances that are at the root of the revolutionary fires that are currently raging.

Is Anarchy the Answer?

Central Banks like the FED are simply the enablers of this dangerous "Social Contract" that is being defaulted upon globally before our very eyes.  Their motivation for enabling is that the arrangement is extremely profitable for their member banks.  When stripped of its veil of legitimacy, the arrangement more resembles a drug cartel than a productive banking system.

So if the desire for government is truly the root of the problem, as we have speculated, then would not anarchy be the solution?  No!  You say!  Anarchy is chaos and destruction!  But is it really?  In the strict sense of the word, Anarchy simply means the absence of government.  In the absence of government, people would quickly understand that they would need to protect and provide for themselves.  This understanding would be quickly followed by the realization that in order to do this they will need to deepen their productive cooperation with their fellow man or woman.

When theft is no longer publicly sanctioned, suddenly the Golden Rule would become the law of the land, with its fruits of peace, freedom, and abundance following soon thereafter.

Until people realize that they need God more than they need a government, we will watch violent struggles to fill the vacuums of power currently being created.  Struggles that often give us such esteemed leaders such as Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, whose loyal tribesmen chose to ditch multimillion dollar aircraft in the desert rather than follow his orders to bomb the opposition, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who apparently has not mastered the use of caller ID or plain old fashioned voice recognition.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email:  davidminteconomics@gmail.com

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Key Indicators for Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.26
Oil Price per Barrel:  $98.97
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  3.49%
FED Target Rate:  0.15%

Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,412

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  4.5%
Unemployment Rate:  9.0%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.4%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  12,106
M1 Monetary Base:  $1,805,500,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $8,854,600,000,000

*See FED Perceived Economic Effect Rate Chart at bottom of blog.  This rate is the FED Target rate with a 39 month lag, representing the time it takes for the FED Target rate changes to affect the real economy.  This is a 39 months head start that the FED member banks have on the rest of us on using the new money that is created.