Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Interview with Julian Assange.

ECONOMICS:

More speculation that the brouhaha surrounding WikiLeaks, especially government pressuring companies to cut off its source of funds, will lead to the adoption of a system of internet money that government can't interfere with.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Here's another reason why the coming collapse will probably be the worse than any in history.

"The fiat-money, central banking system has been around for 100 years and has reached the end of its manipulative life. Central banks around the world delinked from gold some 40 years ago and this has gradually ruined the credibility and value of the world's reserve currency, the dollar. Now Russia, China and even South American countries are trying to remove themselves from dollar dependency. There is much talk of relinking paper money to some sort of underlying commodity so that governments (like the US) cannot spend themselves into oblivion.

The trouble is that there is one dirty little secret that no one talks about: almost every country in the world has a central bank and because of dollar reserve policy all these countries are delinked from money metals as well. This has never before happened in the history of the world. The ramifications are substantial. China's price inflation is running nearly out-of-control because that country's communist leaders have printed so much paper money that the currency is steadily losing value. India is in the same boat and so are a number of countries in South America. The European currency has not necessarily been overprinted – but as a result EU countries are going broke because they cannot debase their currencies as they have in the past."

When the Fed prints money, it devalues not on the dollar but every other currency in the world at the same time. In other words, when the Fed inflates, it inflates every currency in the world. We're heading for the first world-wide monetary collapse in history. That's why central banks around the world are quickly, for them, moving away from the dollar as the reserve currency. Rats fleeing a sinking ship.

"The only solution is to return to some sort of commodity money. Gold and silver have served faithfully as such money in the past."

And they will almost certainly anchor the new monetary system. That makes them tremendously valuable.

"Central banking is a massive kind of price fixing of money – as central bankers "set" interest rates, distorting economies and causing terrible booms and busts over time. Western regulatory democracies fix prices (and create queues and shortages) every time a law is passed or a regulation is introduced. Over time, the distortive effects add up until economies have trouble functioning, unemployment becomes the rule rather than the exception and peoples' standard-of-living plummets to rudimentary levels. This certainly seems to be happening now."

It certainly does.

"Government has caused these problems. The useless laws, absurd environmental regulations, fiscal deprivation and monetary dysfunction are not apt to be cured by the same "bullies" that proposed, implemented and enforced them. So what will happen? Over time, Western societies may gradually collapse, not all at once and not in a manner much remarked upon, certainly not in the mainstream press. But slowly, the market itself may reassert its dormant power."

Gradually? Why gradually? We're already in decline, but when interest rates on US bonds skyrocket, the value of the dollar will collapse quickly.

"While government leaders meet in Geneva or Cancun, normal people will begin to use gold and silver – or even barter – instead of increasingly worthless paper. People will gradually withdraw their paper savings from banks and purchase goods and services of some significant value. People will work off the books to avoid taxes that are squandered on inflated municipal pensions; they will create communities that function away from – beyond increasing government dysfunction. It is already happening – no matter whether one approves or not – and the Internet is providing considerable support."

This is already happening, but I don't think this underground economy will save us. I think the police state will try to destroy it.

"We are told that the Mayans and others abandoned their fabulous cities because of drought and other environmental factors. But it is just as likely that the sophisticated tribes that provided the labor finally tired of the incessant warfare and bloodletting of the day. Each city was, at times, a mini-nation, battling with all the others.

After a point, perhaps, "civilization" became too much; the tributes became too much; the regulations became oppressive. Were the cities, then, simply abandoned ... their inhabitants refusing to support societies that demanded so much but gave so little in return? And where are the descendents of these tribes today? In fact, they still exist throughout South America, farming and worshipping as they always have; the vibrant survivors of great, but oppressive cultures. Yes, they have survived and life goes on. The markets work; people prosper. Only the cities have crumbled."

This is an interesting theory that jives with the article I posted about the other day about how people have always escaped oppressive governments by moving beyond their boundaries.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

US government global warming fraud James Hanson tries to explain why his temperature data say the planet is warm right now when all the other temperature sets say it's cold and the entire northern hemisphere from Russia to Cancun at least is experiencing record cold.

LOCAL:

A bunch of entitled Oakwood residents are upset their neighbors rent their homes to UD students. God forbid that people be free to use their property as they wish. This regulation is an act of aggression against property owners:

"Oakwood resident Ted Kissell said the city’s ordinance — prohibiting more than two unrelated people from living together in a single-family residence — is not well-enforced and should be strengthened."

We only live with the illusion of ownership of property. The government exercises final control over all property, so it's the real owner. That's one of the reasons our country is going downhill so fast.

MISC:

Just looking at meat calms men.

Microsoft tries to patent clicking.

NASA loses solar sail satellite.