Libera Voce

“Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.” Michel de Montaigne

Montaigne is considered the one of the greatest of the French Renaissance writers; he used essays to express his ideas and observations, perhaps one of the first “bloggers”. Mark Twain was an avid reader of Montaigne, and we can see many similarities between them as he was also an essayist, one of America’s best and most admired. Both relied on syllogism, a method of logical discourse first introduced by Aristotle. I was first introduced to syllogisms both directly and indirectly in high school run by De La Salle Christian Brothers, a French Catholic order dedicated to education; classical Euclidean Geometry, and Logic were mandatory subjects, and have helped me to be a better critical thinker.

I am currently reading a very interesting book, “The Art of Deception” by Nicholas Capaldi and Miles Smit. They subtitle it “An Introduction to Critical Thinking”.  Much of the book is a technical review of syllogism, and then it goes on to examples of deceptions presented as facts that we are exposed to in everyday life by legacy and social media, politicians, government, corporations and even those that present themselves as experts in some scientific field. What the book shows us is how to recognize such deceptions through the syllogistic method. One of the red flags the book discusses to indicate that a deception may be at play is the presence of the “Begging the Question Fallacy”; this can be in the form of a discussion, proposal, or argument where the conclusion is an assumption found in the premises, often one that is not supported by evidence, and therefore erroneous, and if intentional, facetious.

What you may come to realize if you read this book is that much of it is simply common sense, but it is still important to understand syllogism because it is the basis of common sense. Note that Montaigne above links arrogance and presumption in the same expression about human malady. What we have today in much of America’s social discourse is an attack on common sense, most of which comes from elitist arrogance, a cultural and political ideology called “Progressivism”; this is not just an ideology that has evolved from modern liberalism as it also embraces what is called being “Woke”.  When I first read and heard some expressions of this malady, I actually thought it was more a mental disorder than a political ideology; as it turns out, it is both.

One of the maladies of being woke is the lack of common sense; not only are the woke consistently guilty of the “Begging the Question Fallacy”, but they also go further by presenting a conclusion and then attempting to prove it by altering facts to support it. The very basis of critical thinking, i.e., common sense, is to start with facts and using logic to arrive at a conclusion. The woke way is essentially a dead end as it can never understand which is real versus presumptions. We hear so much today about the rise of mental illness in our young people and its causes; in the woke bubble you are not only denied the truth but will be penalized or “canceled” for expressing it. Being woke is not conducive to mental health as it is based on subjective feeling, often hysterical and irrational, discounting reality and objective facts. As noted above, Mark Twain was an admirer of Montaigne and humorously paraphrased him when he wrote:

“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

“The budget doesn’t have much control over the government. Then again, the government doesn’t have much control over the budget.” P. J. O’Rourke

Imagine the reaction of a typical middle class family when they hear that the Republicans proposed a revised CR without a debt ceiling or cuts to bring down spending? Here they are trying to pay down debt on their credit cards and they are told that the government that collects their taxes doesn’t want limits on spending them; it may even be that they voted for the Republicans who promised to fix these very problems. Adding insult to injury, the Republicans and the Democrats spend more time blaming each other while proposing more of the same again and again.

It’s not the mystery drones in the news that should concern us more than the incessant droning of this wearisome debate on how we are going to be fleeced yet again; as if that’s not painful enough, we get to endure the spectacle of corruption live as the media swarms over this annual pork barreling event. The Democrats over the last four years have made such a mess of the economy with egregious spending, and now the Republicans want to make us believe that eliminating a debt ceiling will fix that; what are we missing?

The reality is that the debt ceiling was suspended on 06/03/23 until 01/01/25 as part of the Biden “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023”; how can anyone call that fiscal responsibility? Well, how can anyone call something the “Inflation Reduction Act” that created so much more inflation? Further, why would the President Elect ask for the debt ceiling to be suspended further when he was elected on the promise to reign in government spending? The CR that was passed only covers the period until 03/13/25, so this much touted deal to avoid a shut down is just another case of kicking the can down the road.

What’s really frustrating to anyone with a sense of fiscal intelligence and responsibility is the fact that in all three versions of the CR that were voted on, the amount of money never changed, just the number of pages it took to screw us; it’s not the number of pages that we should focus on, but that there were no spending cuts. It’s also notable that every Democrat voted for the CR, along with most Republicans; there’s that bipartisan deception working against us yet again.

Historically we’ve been subject to such deceptions for quite some time now; the first and last time the US paid off its debt was in 1835, and since 1939 the debt ceiling has been raised 103 times; if debt were a drug, we may very well be close to an overdose. Back in January 2023 the national debt stood at $31.4T, and as of the vote for this current CR, we are at $36.2T; we are told that under audit there are departments such as the DOD that can’t account for billions of their budget each year. As the famous financial guru Dave Ramsey often advises, “A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.”

What in fact are we missing? We are clearly missing having a government that practices sound budgeting and financial standards, the same that it insists corporations and banks follow under its regulatory agencies like the SEC and Fed. Despite this, we vote time and again for the same old political machine of legalized corruption and for whatever reason expect a different result; is this not Einstein’s definition of insanity? The new administration won the election with a lot of promises about how this will be different this time, and we should give them a chance before we judge what they’re doing; however, eliminating the debt ceiling doesn’t give us much confidence that they are serious about cutting spending.

We have seen how cutting taxes broadens the revenue base, but if tariffs become more than a bargaining chip, they are in fact a tax on Americans; they are also the cause for trade wars which often lead to conflicts. What we need now is a focus on the national debt, which starts with spending cuts, and then on to having a balanced budget, just like we expect mature adults to behave. What we are missing is that government as an infinite ATM machine is a myth; that’s our money they’re spending and then taxing us even more through inflation, tariffs and corruption.

“The budget is like a mythical bean bag. Congress votes mythical beans into it, then reaches in and tries to pull real ones out.” Will Rogers

“Why have a national debt ceiling if it doesn’t really put a ceiling on the national debt?” Thomas Sowell

If you listen to all the pundits and experts about the failure to pass the Continuing Resolution (CR), you would think the world ends at midnight tomorrow; what needs to end is proposing a bill that continues the fiscal irresponsibility of our government. There would be no need for a CR if Congress would do its job and pass a full budget, which hasn’t happened since 2009; since then, we have had to plod through this ridiculous CR process with huge omnibus proposals that include all sorts of corrupt appropriations, and this year’s 1,547 page edition is among the worst.

While politicians of both parties and the media blame Musk and some conservatives for the rejection of this current “pork barrel” version, what alarmed many in the House and Senate who took the time to read this massive tome was the discovery that little of it dealt with the fiscal issue of a budget; fact is, the budget was already blown, and the reason for CRs is to come up with a workaround  to appropriate even more money. To say that the current system isn’t working depends on your point of view – if you want more pork, it works just fine.

Per the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), approximately a $1T is added to the national debt every 100 days; as Robert Sowell said above, why even bother with this process if the reality is it doesn’t even matter? To make matters worse, the Federal Reserve announced today another rate cut, despite the latest reports of increased inflation. In listening to various financial news shows, there are three possible scenarios for how this situation will play out economically for the American people:

1. Soft Landing – the most optimistic that relies on the new administration cutting taxes and spending, reducing inflation and providing regulatory relief. Assuming all that happens, the theory is we will avoid a recession.
2. Recession – not very optimistic, but more realistic; the question is when and how bad.
3. Crisis – the most catastrophic and based on the very plausible occurrence of default on the national debt; it is so huge, and as noted getting bigger every few months, that UST bonds will be the least attractive asset the US market has to offer, resulting in a diminishing source of government funds, which ironically is the sale of even more debt. The Fed and the UST will likely make inflation catastrophic with even more money printing, adding fuel to this fire.

There is a branch of philosophy called agnotology, which is about ignorance as a social construct for use as a political tool. Most Americans don’t engage in philosophical debates as they’re too involved with making ends meet, but what they should realize is that they are being played by a cabal that relies on their economic and fiscal ignorance. Notice that when Powell said yesterday that there will be fewer rate cuts next year than were anticipated earlier, the major indices tanked; Wall Street is not Main Street where long-term growth and prosperity depends on a healthy economy, which is based on productivity, not consumption. The cabal of Wall Street, the Fed and government want cheap money, whereas Main Street needs sound money.

Metrics like GDP are misleading in as much as it is more a metric for consumption than production, and what we need for true growth is production; the latest labor reports don’t provide much hope for that as manufacturing jobs declined, and construction is lagging again. Where did all that money for all those government programs under the previous administrations go? Well why do you think such programs are called pork barrels? 

“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.” Will Rogers

“In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.” George Carlin

I was watching some old videos of George Carlin stand-ups and found this line a classical Carlin comic relief, taking the obvious and seemingly irrelevant and giving it a humorous context. We often need comic relief to release emotional stress, especially when faced with serious and tragic events. Of course, with Carlin you can always count on someone being offended as the content will usually carry the sting of sarcasm about someone’s behavior or beliefs, but if you can get beyond that, comic relief is a good potion for what troubles you.

I needed this recently to snap me out of a dark mood about some recent events like the Thompson murder and the Penny trial; no sooner had they caught Thompson’s murderer, and no sooner than Penny’s acquittal, we get some in the media and many progressives eulogizing the guilty and demonizing the innocent. While I was never a real comic book fan, I do remember “Bizarro World”, a fictional planet where the people are the opposites of DC Comic heroic characters; the reactions by some to these recent events seems like Earth is morphing into “Bizarro World”.

How did those people lose their moral compass to the extent that they do not understand the difference between a murderer and a defender, making excuses for evil and creating hatred for good? Both were tragic events that involved taking human life, one clearly premeditated, the other far from it; yet there are those that will introduce issues such as grievance and race as justifications or causes for such tragedies.

The killing of Brian Thompson was clearly premeditated murder and raises questions about how Mangione knew precisely where his victim would be and at what time. The trial of Daniel Penny is a bizarre miscarriage of justice that reeks of racism and partisan prejudice, not to mention ignorance as it’s a counterproductive warning to all those that may find themselves in a situation where they can help their fellow man. The narrative that Mangione was acting based on some grievance on a UHC denial of coverage was debunked when it was found that he was not a subscriber to that insurance coverage; even if he had been, that may have been a motive but hardly a justification for homicide. The narrative that Penny was motivated by Neely’s race was debunked by the black people on the subway who were threatened by Neely and testified in Penny’s defense; a white racist does not come to the defense of those he hates.

This post is not about the many details of either case as the issue is less to do with the facts and forensics than the disturbing reactions from a bankrupt radical culture in the American judicial system and legacy media incapable of differentiating right from wrong; thankfully we have a cold-blooded murderer in custody and the citizens of the Penny jury rejected the charges brought against a hero. Some call these cases a turning point in the cultural pendulum swings regarding crime and punishment; maybe that’s true but I reserve judgement on that until after Mangione’s trial.

A curious fact is that many of those in media and progressive groups who eulogize Mangione and demonize Penny are the same people; these narratives have been with us for quite a while and contrary to what some people think, I believe that these same groups of people are still quite large and becoming more strident. There’s a group think nature to them that George Carlin spoke very seriously about that doesn’t offer much comic relief but helps us understand the malignancy involved:

“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you’ve lost your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that’s bigger than you are and that controls you.”

“Pardon is granted to necessity.” Cicero

When most Americans heard Joe Biden say that he would never pardon Hunter, they knew that he would; this wailing and shock expressed by media and politicians compared to the relatively clam acceptance by the public exposes a cynical complacency about the corruption of the political class. The fact that presidential pardons are even enumerated in our constitution is itself a corruption carried over from the English monarchy; they are limited to federal offenses and cannot affect an impeachment process.

Cicero’s quote above was principally about justifiable reasons for military action or refraining from doing so making a pardon a necessity. Joe’s pardon was less a necessity for Hunter than it was for the “Big Guy”; the most effective way for Joe to protect himself from further investigation into his influence pedaling scheme was to end Hunter’s liability for what the poor fool documented on his laptop. While the scandal will linger, the pardon will make further inquiry far more difficult; further, Joe still has time to issue more pardons, but without indictments there are no crimes to pardon. While Ford pardoned Nixon prior to an indictment, that precedent may not stand up constitutionally for Joe, and such pardons would imply that there are grounds for investigation of potential crimes.

Presidential pardons have historically been the subject of much criticism, with the abuse reaching its apex under FDR who issued over 3,600; during the waning days of the last Trump administration, Dan Rather humorously asked “Why is the Trump White House suddenly a very polite place to work? Everyone’s going around saying ‘pardon me.’”

Joe’s pardon of Hunter is not just a way to cover up the sins of the father, but illustrates what’s wrong with presidential pardons, and more broadly, the dangerous expansion of the executive branch itself. The former will require a constitutional amendment, a long and arduous process constructed to protect against chaotic and partisan erosion of original intent so prevalent in the constitutions of other nations; the latter is itself an issue of an unconstitutional evolution of the executive branch.

A major step to correct the abusive executive expansion was made this past June when SCOTUS ruled in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overturning the 40-year-old “Chevron Doctrine” which required courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous laws; that doctrine egregiously transferred legislative and judicial powers to the executive branch, giving its agencies the power to issue rules and regulations, in effect laws, bypassing the legislative process or judicial review.

Interestingly, the Trump initiative with DOGE will affect the executive branch more so than any other as it is not only the largest, but the most corrupt, wasteful, and abusive of the three. I seldom give credit to Trump, but his campaign promise to tackle the “Deep State” will, if effective, limit the powers of the administration he will soon head; curiously, the Democratic Party has become the biggest obstacle to that happening, and there are some Republicans who are also resistant. These reforms are long overdue, have the constitutional and electoral imperative to proceed, and present the best opportunity to reduce budget deficits and consequently the national debt; resistance to these reforms exposes the bad faith and deeply rooted corruption so often criticized but seldom addressed.

An even bigger abuse that requires reform is executive orders; while there’s no explicit provision in the Constitution for executive orders, it has been viewed as “implied” under the description of executive powers, but traditionally understood as only directives to employees within the executive branch to clarify their roles and responsibilities. Further, SCOTUS has held that all executive orders must be supported constitutionally, and further that executive orders are not laws as they are not the product of a legislative process; therefore, they are only applicable for employees of the executive branch and still subject to judicial review. This was clearly the intent of the main author of the Constitution, James Madison, when he said that, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Pardon me if I seem irreverent, but I don’t even subscribe to the idea of a President as defined in our Constitution as it provides too much opportunity for the exercise of arbitrary and unchecked power; the biggest supporter of such a powerful entity as expressed in the Federalist Papers was Alexander Hamilton, a known monarchist and main instigator of the Constitutional Convention. Thankfully, there were more liberty minded founders like Madison to limit Hamilton’s influence, but his impact lives with us today with an executive branch that needs a radical makeover. Trump, and all who may follow him to the Oval Office, need to realize that what they do that contributes to the growth of executive power, regardless of their motives, has consequences that will inevitably and negatively impact our liberty.

“Once you’ve built the big machinery of political power, remember you won’t always be the one to run it.” P. J. O’Rourke

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

The above quote is from the 1967 film, Cool Hand Luke; the reason it is such an iconic line is that it is quintessentially American, something obvious but seldom recognized. If you can’t tell someone at any given moment who you are, then they will not know you, except for what you have said in the past; that is essentially what happened this past Tuesday in the Presidential election.

I do not subscribe to the view that when given a choice between the lesser of two evils, pick the lesser evil, even though in the end you still get evil. The American political system is dominated by the duopoly of Republican and Democratic parties such to the extent that third parties often can’t even get on the ballot due to the repressive system controlled by what we call the “establishment”; consequently, the choice is either the lesser of the two evils, vote for your principles, or not at all.

After the 2020 elections and the 2022 midterms, Trump’s political career was considered over, written off by the media as a brief chapter of chaos; in the meantime, we had even more chaos with “lawfare”, the Biden/Harris administration’s bizarre and destructive COVID policies, Woke agenda, proxy censorship, irresponsible and inflationary fiscal and monetary policies, and irrational immigration policies. Then there was the political thuggery of a coup against a sitting president, all in the name of saving democracy. Without even the semblance of a democratic process, Harris was anointed the new candidate.

Back in August, following the Democratic National Convention, most media pundits forecast a Harris win, but then she and her Party committed a series of self-inflicted wounds that were inexplicable; first and foremost was the inability, or as some thought, the strategic practice of evasion; Harris either talked around questions regarding policy, or avoided them altogether. Communication is all about both the ability to listen, and the ability to speak in a clear, concise, and accurate manner; evasion therefore would be counterproductive, especially in a political campaign.  

This was not the only fatal flaw in the Harris campaign; it is a given in any marketing strategy to avoid talking about the competition as that appears not only as negative messaging, but a sign of weakness; it also provides the competition with free airtime, name recognition on your nickel. Calling the competition a danger to democracy, Nazis and garbage makes Clinton’s insult “deplorables” seem mild in comparison; that coupled with the evasion strategy made the Harris campaign appear hollow. Add to this Obama’s lecturing Black men that not voting for Harris was misogynistic is a repetition of Biden’s 2020 gaff that “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”

There is a theory proposed by the author Robert J. Hanlon, fittingly called Hanlon’s Razor, that states “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”; this is an excellent theory, but there are times when experience provides examples of both malice and stupidity. The crash and burn of the 2024 Democratic campaigns are attributable to their failure to address their own bad policies, a refusal to define what new policies will be proposed to fix the problems they created, and dismissive and insulting rhetoric. When the official position of the incumbent administration is that MAGA is fascist, you are in essence expressing hatred for at least half of the American electorate, a declaration of war with the very voting population you are hoping to win over; stupidity coupled with malice is not a winning strategy.

I did not vote for Trump this past Tuesday, I voted for Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate. John Quincy Adams was forever right when he said, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” Given the overwhelming win by the GOP, I am not naïve enough to believe my vote mattered, especially as many Libertarians voted for Trump; in all due respect the GOP and Donald Trump ran a very smart campaign, reaching out to all those that felt they were dismissed by the elitist regime that the Democratic Party has become. The contrast could not have been more telling as they gained support of minorities, some Democrats and third parties, winning a huge electoral and popular vote.

Now that the election is all but over (except for Nevada and Arizona who seem incapable of counting in a timely manner), we still are subject to irrational behavior from both Democrats and the media; first, why did it take Harris so long to concede the obvious, and secondly, why are there accusations that the results are due to racism and misogyny? The growing disillusion among minorities with the Democratic Party is hardly based on race, and despite the Democratic focus on abortion to harvest women votes, that just did not resonate; just because you evade or ignore reality does not mean it will ignore you.

“You can’t fix stupid, but you can vote it out.” John Kennedy, US Senator, LA

“It is so easy to be wrong, and to persist in being wrong, when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.” Thomas Sowell

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a huge spending bill that only added to inflation, was proposed and passed on the promise that it would reduce it. While it was one of many similar acts in a series of irresponsible fiscal policies, it was something much worse than the usual cronyism between corrupt politicians and their corporate partners; in this case, like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it was a further nationalization of an already over-regulated health industry, the degree to which has become apparent with the advent of the 2025 Medicare Enrollment period.   

Besides all sorts of “Green New Deal” provisions in the IRA that we were told would reduce American energy costs, the same was promised regarding prescription drug costs. It’s a huge piece of legislation to wade through, so much so that many in Congress admitted they never even had a chance to read it all before it was pushed through by the VP’s tie breaking vote in the Senate; I doubt many Americans, including myself, ever read more than media summaries. Unless you like the legislative equivalent to a Russian novel, rambling and often incoherent, you were not aware of what the fine print had in store for seniors on Medicare.

When we started getting letters and emails from the various services for Medicare Part D supplemental coverage, including insurance agents, insurers and pharmacies, the dots started to get connected exposing the huge increases coming our way. We were always suspicious about all the promises the government made for how drug costs would be lowered by allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with Big Pharma, but we never suspected that our prescription drug supplement plan premiums would be raised more than 1,000%; additionally, the deductible was raised 12%, co-pays were higher, eligible pharmacies were reduced, and agents were no longer compensated by the plans they found for us, eliminating their services.

How such egregious manipulations and price hikes could be seen as a benefit to Americans is hard to understand. The only increased benefit to be found was the threshold for annual co-pays, at which point there is no further costs to the insured; that threshold was greatly reduced to around the average American’s annual drug costs. Then we have the “Advantage Plans”, which are heavily subsidized while strictly network limited, but include such benefits as travel costs to/from medical services, healthier food, and even rent for financially eligible members; the premiums for such plans do not cover the benefits, so the funding had to come from somewhere.

I knew very little about RFK Jr. until he ran in the 2024 Democratic Primary for the presidential nomination; one thing that his campaign made us aware of was that in the US approximately half the population suffers from at least one chronic disease, most have at least two, the highest rates worldwide. Most of these diseases are not genetically based but self-inflicted due to poor lifestyle choices like smoking, fatty and processed food diets, and a lack of exercise leading to respiratory, cardiac and obesity problems resulting in cancer, asthma, COPD, type B diabetes, etc. Little wonder then that the US also has the highest per capita health costs.

In auto, home, business and life insurance premiums are calculated based on risk, the greater that is so are the premiums; to some degree this was the case with health insurance until the incidence of chronic diseases rose to the point where those affected became a significant electoral group that politicians could manipulate, something they are very good at. The reason for the lowered threshold costs and attendant egregiously higher premiums are obviously related as the government transfers the costs for prescription drug insurance from those with chronic health issues to average Americans. Politicians justify such parasitical policies with altruistic concern and use deceptive legalese like the IRA on the belief that Americans are gullible or willfully ignorant due to some perceived self-interest. I have not heard either Harris or Trump talk to this issue so it doesn’t seem likely that things will change anytime soon.

All Medicare supplemental plans are legislatively proscribed, so the structure, terms and conditions are regulatorily identical regardless of the insurance carrier; the differential is the efficiency and quality of service resulting in variations in costs and in the case of prescription drug plans the variations can be significant, although all are now much higher. Add to this that while Social Security Benefits have been increased with the Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA), the Medicare deduction nearly eliminated the increase. For seniors on Medicare, you are virtually living under a socialized medical regime; if you are still working and have employer provided (but likely shared cost) health insurance coverage, you are less so, but all health insurance companies are heavily regulated. The alternative is private health insurance, but unless you are among the very rich, those plans are unaffordable. Since the advent of the ACA, overall health care costs have nearly doubled, and with the IRA, they are getting even worse; so much for making health care more affordable or lowering inflation.

Henry Hazlitt, a famous financial journalist, insightfully observed that “Inflation makes the extension of socialism possible by providing the financial chaos in which it flourishes. The fact is that socialism and inflation are cause and effect, they feed on each other!”

“Political tags, such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth, are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” Robert A. Heinlein

Heinlein is a famous science fiction author whose many novels displayed his insightful social and political observations; his quote above is one of the most concise descriptions of politics, distilling it down to the issue of control. Historically, if a society is at peace with itself, tolerant of the differences within it, and providing for the safety and security of its people, which is the only morally legitimate reason for a society to create a government, its politics will reflect that and the result will be a productive and prosperous one; if not, its politics will be coercive and chaotic, divisive and ultimately self-destructive.

Many Americans today can’t differentiate between society and government, or explain the logical foundation of whatever ideology they espouse; their electoral preferences are swayed more by media narratives than principles. American society has become consumed by partisan marketing campaigns that make everything political; food, sex, religion, weather, education, race, health, and just about everything that actually has no place in politics at all, become divisive issues rather than simply common interests of a society at peace with itself.

Politics has the genetic code for power which attracts manipulative personalities by offering control, the drug they are addicted to; if society has no safeguards against this, or allows them to become corrupted, its existence apart from the state becomes just a semantic distinction. To work around such safeguards, manipulative personalities create narratives about those very things that don’t belong in an honest political dialogue; everything is in play, everything becomes political. Such narratives often create “claim rights”; these are not the freedom to do something, but to get something, an entitlement that requires two things, money and the power to make them happen.

In order to defend “claim rights” against those who reject them, you make them villains who would deny people their rights. While there are some who can see through such scams, all too often many don’t, hopelessly confused by the word play. This is not a syndrome reserved to any one political group or ideology as all who crave power often resemble each other; progressives at universities profess dedication to free inquiry while suppressing it, and conservatives in Congress speak to due process while supporting things like the Patriot Act. When everything is political, the boundaries between the state and the people become blurred.

As Heinlein said, the labels are all wrong; the left/right paradigm of political ideology is poorly conceived and totally inaccurate in defining policy or concept. Progressivism is regressive, and conservatism is just as paternalistic and nationalistic, perhaps even more like socialism than liberalism; all seem addicted to power and make everything political to achieve it. What’s really being missed is the attitude that someone knows what’s best for everyone else, and that’s what destroys the liberties of a free society.

“Liberty is hard to achieve, which is what makes the cult of power so seductive, even to those who identify as libertarian. Once consumed by the desire for power, there’s no going back to the principle of liberty for all; liberty will always feel like a strategic error.” Justin Amash

“Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving.” Warren Buffett.

According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), in a recent study by its Investor Education Foundation, only about 34% of US adults surveyed could answer basic questions about finance; compare that to most European countries at 65%. This helps to explain why so many Americans make such poor decisions undermining the stability of their own lives, that of their families and society in general. Prior similar US studies had better results, which means that financial illiteracy is getting worse; this has become so alarming that the US Treasury recommended that Congress consider making financial literacy courses mandatory at the college level. Besides the fact that both Congress and the US Treasury are not exactly stellar examples of financial stability, such courses should have better results at the high school level; in fact, it’s very encouraging that 35 states starting this year require in their curriculum personal finance courses for a high school diploma.

Warren Buffet’s missive about saving and spending is a good place to start in teaching children the basics about finance, especially when we see such ridiculous phenomenon among the younger generations like “Doom Spending”; the rational for such behavior is depression about the future. Also disturbing is the attitude among some of the older generations that such education is too little, too late; that only back feeds such irrational behavior by writing the younger generations off. Compounding all of this is the grossly irresponsible behavior and cronyism of financial institutions and government. It’s understandable that without financial literacy and basic economic knowledge, such a situation can lead to depression.

The average US personal savings rate in the US has declined steadily over the years to the current 4.8% (except for the Covid period of 20%). There are countries with much higher rates, but some like Argentina are due to interest rates at 113% to counter hyperinflation; contrarily Norway, with many of its fiscal and monetary reforms, balanced budgets, low debt and low inflation has a savings rate over 60%. Clearly there’s a correlation if not causation between financial literacy, savings and stable economic conditions.

There is another underlying societal issue at play besides the lack of financial literacy, and that is a self-centered sense of entitlement that somehow society owes you stuff, whether we call it the “American Dream”, or some imagined claimed rights to things you haven’t earned; pandering to such irrational behavior only serves to perpetuate the ignorance of financial illiteracy, and that is not limited to just our youth. When politicians claim as a right the transfer of the cost of education, medical services, home ownership, etc. from some to others, it creates distorted perceptions that underwrite this ignorance.

Financial operations are the mechanics of an economy; if such operations fail or become distorted and corrupted, they will in turn destabilize an economy. It’s odd that some economists and the government use Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to evaluate how the economy is doing; it’s actually a measure of consumption and not production because it’s a metric of consumer spending. The reason why the US became the largest economy in the world was its productive capacity, which was fueled by its ability to accumulate capital that feed this capacity, and that in turn came from savings, the ability of people to defer consumption for future benefits.

The word “future” is so essential to understand when looking at finance and how it functions to the benefit of an economy. Thinking about the future is also essential to a healthy psychology; when people don’t see the point in doing so, it leads to depression and all sorts of bad behavior can come from that. What we need to do as a society is focus on education that gives our children the tools they will need in the future to make decisions that in turn benefit their futures; what we don’t need is to rely on a government that creates trillions of dollars of debt that will burden their ability to do so.

There are many financial instruments available for people that represent savings such as CDs, stocks, bonds, etc.; what they all represent is a financial means to contribute to wealth, which is something that is more complex than just money, but a good place to start. One thing that children need to understand very early in life is what money actually is; given that all “money” in the world today is fiat currency, that can be very confusing, so for children, keep it simple and just say it’s a means to purchase what you need.  For adults, they need to understand that all currencies today are simply debt instruments; take out any US currency and look at the top of the portrait side that reads “Federal Reserve Note”.  A note is a debt security obligating repayment of a loan, at a predetermined interest rate; try telling that to the Federal Reserve.

It’s not difficult to understand the motivation of politicians like Wilson, Roosevelt and Nixon to divorce the US dollar from a commodity base such as gold because that provided Americans the means to be free from government control of their money; fiat currency provides government the freedom to tax without legislation through inflation, and we’ve seen where that leads. However, while an essential part of financial literacy and economic intelligence, the subject of sound money is addressed in prior posts (Gold Myths 07.12.19) and will be revisited in future ones.

For this post, the message is that if we want to help our children learn what it takes to make a good life, in addition of course to integrity, good work ethic, healthy diet, etc., then get involved with their education and that must include financial literacy and economic intelligence.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.” Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville was a classical liberal in the tradition of the Enlightenment and a student of natural law, although at times he is difficult to categorize in the chaotic French politics of his time; he wrote “Democracy in America”, his most famous work of sociology and political science based on his 1831-1835 travels in the US commissioned by the French government. It is a work that illustrated his keen sense of observation and methodical analytical style based on first principles; in regard to political parties, he understood correctly what they seldom if ever are.

It was Aristotle who first proposed the original concept of first principles, an analytical method of breaking something down until it can’t be dissected any further in order to understand it correctly. This method of analyzing something has been used by many in both the arts and sciences in successful problem solving because the essence of whatever the problem is can be exposed; it’s useful in both invention and discovery by avoiding going off in the wrong direction leading to erroneous conclusions.

We can use this concept of first principles to see through the confusion created by all the chaos around us today, and better understand what is going on, rather than passively accepting the narratives bombarding us. Most of these narratives are little more than extremely partisan rhetoric filled with defamation, and stoking fear of whoever is the target; when examining any of these narratives, first look for the idea behind the message. If it’s why you should not support whoever is the target, then you need to understand what those reasons are. 

Once those reasons are identified, you then proceed to find out if there is any substance to those reasons; often we find that the substance is a chain of other narratives in support of a conclusion expressed in the initial narrative by using analogies such as whoever supports “X” is like someone who another narrative says is bad. If that happens, then what you have discovered is that the initial narrative lacked principles itself and is just part of the political echo chamber, i.e., it is not meant to inform, but to deflect away from civil discourse by redirecting the debate to better serve the narrative. Denouncing someone with name calling for having a position contrary to your own without addressing what is wrong with their position is an indication of fear coupled with a lack of intelligence.

Using first principles also provides insights about the sources of such narratives; if the substance of the narrative is not about the issues at hand but a denunciation of someone, the source itself is lacking in principles representing a resolution to those issues and instead creates narratives filled with divisiveness. When we dig deeper into divisive narratives we will discover that the consequence, intended or not, moves people away from civil discourse to the tribalism of them versus us; what we can also discover is that shrill and abusive rhetoric in the narrative lacks a rational foundation or perhaps even conviction for the opinion expressed.

There are also narratives that politicians create about policies that, when you drill down on them, you are left with little substance but many meaningless platitudes; this too you will discover is meant to deflect your attention away from a resolution of issues, if not from the issues themselves. Often such policies represent more of a way to focus blame and increase power than solve problems. Politicians often use such narratives to avoid speaking about issues that may expose either their ignorance about them, or their flawed policies to address them. Consuming such narratives is like eating processed foods that fill you up but provide little nourishment.

The first principles concept also provides what we should do about such narratives, and that is to ignore them; the resulting tribalism of those echo chambers only serves to stoke fear which creates an environment counterproductive to rational thought. While fear is a survival instinct we all have, it is one we need to control for the sake of rational thinking; divisive narratives are used to create the herd instinct, a collective and corrosive fear intended to drive people into divisions based on ignorance, which in turn is often the source of fear itself.

Like all principles, Aristotle’s concept of how to correctly understand things is not subject to moderation because that undermines its very purpose; in applying it to political narratives we can avoid the fear intended in the messaging, some subtle, some obviously playing on the very prejudices in their content. The practice of first principles means you never stop questioning so that regardless of what something may appear to be, you come to know the reality it is.

“The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.” Ralph Waldo Emerson