Last Updated: Mar 25th, 2013 - 16:46:15 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Thought for the Day I had a haircut the other day at the local barbers. He has been cutting men's hair for 40 years and does a quick neat and efficient job for a modest fee. While I was comfortably seated we had an interesting conversation. He did all the talking. His business has been built up over many years and is run out of an old caravan parked on a supermarket parking lot. This makes for cheap overheads and he employs two or three part time barbers to help in the rush hours. He pointed out the new barbers shop over the road in an expensive shop fronting on to the main street and explained that the barber over there was a refugee. The government had sent the refugee up to Auckland for six months of training to be a barber and was currently funding his new set-up on the main street. My barber had just spent most of the day up till then (3pm) doing his GST tax return and talking to his accountant which is how this subject arose. I asked him how he felt about spending all that time and money calculating how much tax to send to the government and then sending it, only to realise that the government was taking his money and handing it out to the barber over the road so that he was capable of competing with him. He was remarkably sanguine about the whole scheme. I am not. This is just another example of how government interference in the economy causes more problems than it solves and builds resentment amongst the people funding the costs. It encourages people to become beneficiaries - in this case under the guise of setting up business enterprises - and increases the load on the naturally productive. Our government is actively killing off the economy. Mind you this was probably started under the Clark administration and National have not discovered this rort yet. And to top it all off my barber also explained that the refugees that take up this "freeby" and go on to become citizens after two years, then immediately emigrate to Australia where they can earn more money. The only way to create wealth is by people providing a product or a service for which their fellow citizens are prepared to pay money. In all this activity any money saved can then be used as capital to build new or bigger businesses and generate more wealth. Governments only source of wealth is from this pool of private enterprise. Even if they borrow or print money this will be eventually be paid for by the private sector or the children or grandchildren as the debts become due. The time is coming closer when we will be compelled to take a much closer look at this inherently unfair way to run a country. The welfare state has only been able to survive for so long because governments have had the ability to print up the extra money needed to pay for everything. But that scheme is drawing to close. Let us hope that it is not too messy. Oct 14, 2011, 13:45 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 ACT's Twenty Point Plan Continuing on with our look at progress with ACT's 20 point plan we now come to: Point Number Sixteen - Housing (Free up more land) Not much progress unfortunately. Some land is being provided in Kaiapoi for earthquake victims but the only reference I could find on this topic under Google was a speech by Helen Clark in February 2008 promising the same thing. Verdict - no progress. Point Number Seventeen - Law and Order Three strikes and your out! Umpty-ump years after 94% of the population voted in a referendum for taking the dangerous criminals out of circulation we have finally done it. Our Justice Minister has worked long and hard to improve our Justice system and I suppose it is working as the Chief Justice felt moved to complain about it in a recent speech. I am not competent to judge! Concerning the introduction of private prisons this comment appeared three days ago in the news, "The Government says a new multimillion-dollar prison for South Auckland may not be needed because the number of prisoners is expected to fall dramatically." Well done! We seem to have made no progress on allowing private firms to free up police for "Zero Tolerance" policing. With respect to speeding up the provision of justice there are a number of initiatives now bearing fruit: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/removal-depositions-speeding-court-process http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/3589338/Change-to-speed-up-court-cases Hopefully this trend will continue. [ Visit Website ] Oct 14, 2011, 14:13 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Why the State Demands Control of Money "Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Austrian School economist and anarchocapitalist philosopher, is professor emeritus of economics at UNLV, a distinguished fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and founder and president of The Property and Freedom Society." The thing I like about these Austrian Economists is that they see the truth and they tell the truth. Some of them can also explain all of the truth in straight forward terms so that even I can understand it. The interesting thing to me is that his book, as you will see displayed with this essay, is entitled, "Economics for Real People". (As opposed to economics for the Unreal Paper Money people.) If you want to understand economics that explains the REAL World then have a look at our website at: http://www.economicgrowth.org.nz/artman/publish/real-economics.shtml And then have a look at Herman's story here: [ Visit Website ] Oct 14, 2011, 11:56 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Why The Euro Bailout is The Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History Norman Lamont wrote this article for the Daily Mail. He is described in Wikipedia as: "Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont, Baron Lamont of Lerwick, PC (born 8 May 1942) is a British politician and former Conservative MP for Kingston-upon-Thames. He is best-known for his period serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer, from 1990 until 1993. He was created a life peer in 1998." So he was the UK Central Banker under John Major. He should know a thing or two! [ Visit Website ] Oct 14, 2011, 10:07 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 The Real Euro Crisis This short article shows clearly the choice that New Zealand has for its future. Are we going the Greek way or the German way? [ Visit Website ] Oct 13, 2011, 10:12 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 The Financial Crisis Returns The title of this article about European money problems is, "The Financial Crisis Returns". The fact is that it never went away. The world is in a long term bust after the last boom fell apart in America in 2008. Either we will all be allowed to decline to our natural state without the steroid effect of Central Banking paper money OR the bust will develop into a Misesian "Crack Up Boom". A super bust of hyperinflation enveloping the whole world. I am not sure how we could cope with this in New Zealand but it certainly needs thinking about. If we ever get to the stage of relying upon IMF paper money backed by national paper money then we will be totally finished. Let us hope that it doesn't get that far. [ Visit Website ] Oct 13, 2011, 09:26 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Slovaks Love and Hate Euro Slovakia is booming with their FLAT TAX regime and hard work. Should they bail out the lazy Greeks? That is the question. [ Visit Website ] Oct 13, 2011, 08:56 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 China’s Pan Asia Gold Exchange The Chinese understand the paper money ponzi scheme very well. They are making decisions in the best interests of themselves. When the paper money economies of EUUSUK implode China will be last man standing on the economic field. We could learn a lot from this ancient civilisation. [ Visit Website ] Oct 12, 2011, 14:30 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Financial Institutions Stare Into The Abyss Even the very stable and standard approach from the Financial Times shows that we do not have the answer using standard economics. They fear the depression, likely coming soon, and don't understand that this retrenchment is just the natural economy caused by Human Action adjusting to being on paper money steroids for 40 years. We all just cannot keep borrowing from each other while continually going deeper and deeper into debt. People are stopping their rash spending. Jobs are getting harder to find and then they don't pay so well. Governments cannot tax their way out of this problem this time. The people they usually tax are running out of income and assets. So they will print more money and the hyper-inflation will come. Suddenly. Let us hope that we are not in the same boat! [ Visit Website ] Oct 11, 2011, 16:03 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 The Ticking Euro Bomb Parts I and II The European Union was born into easy money. The Germans who had lived through the hyper-inflation of the 1920s have been able to constrain themselves but for the rest of them, the easy downhill ride was too tempting. Greece is leading the way. [ Visit Website ] Oct 10, 2011, 10:34 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 The Ticking Euro Bomb Parts III and IV Greece is spiraling downwards and the rest of Europe is panicking. So are the debtors. [ Visit Website ] Oct 10, 2011, 10:20 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 California and Bust Vanity Fair produces some interesting, albeit longish, articles. In a world where paper money makes anything possible there is inevitably a limit. We are reaching that limit and will have to go back to using REAL Money if we are to remain civilised. New Zealand was once described as a wonderful quarter acre, pavlova, half gallon paradise. We unfortunately ran out of money in the 1980s and that brought a touch of reality to our fevered brows. We have just run out of money again and hopefully we are beginning to understand how the world really works. [ Visit Website ] Oct 9, 2011, 12:44 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Embry on Gold People are going to move out of paper currency and into gold money. This will bring tumultuous change. [ Visit Website ] Oct 7, 2011, 13:07 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 India, China Lead Gold Rush Time, tide and gold wait for no man. [ Visit Website ] Oct 7, 2011, 12:56 Newsletters : 2011 Newsletters : 14 October 2011 Quote for the Week The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later, is the people versus the banks. Lord Acton *** *** *** We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K. Sir Eddie George, Bank of England, September 1999 *** *** *** The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. Marcus Aurelius Oct 6, 2011, 14:50