Tag Archives: Inflation

Economic Options

Back when I wrote my first post in this series Williamson and the other cucks were accusing everybody who doesn’t like how the current economic system destroys traditional communities and promotes rootless cosmopolitanism is a liberal, because, according to them the inhuman destruction of community and the promotion of rootless urbanism all in the name of greater efficiency is the definition of conservatism.

Clarkhat wondered:

So, today, I’m going to propose some non-socialist, non-liberal, and traditionalist measures that could be potentially taken to stop the rapaciousness of the modern US economy. There is no liberalism or big government in these measures, simply traditional common-sense. I’ve already explained how the market should be restructured on a large scale to be more human, it should be owned, but the following are more practical in nature, and could all be implemented within our current system. (also, keep in mind my points made about the economy and GDP here throughout).

Replace Income Taxes with Tariffs and Consumption Taxes

We could raise tariffs on foreign goods. Trump has mentioned this and many conservatives have pointed out that this is a tax on consumer goods. They’re right but they’re also wrong in that they’re bad.

For the government to function it requires taxes of some sort and I have yet to hear a conservative saying we should entirely eliminate government. So we need taxes. For taxes we have a few options:

Wealth taxes are the worst: they encourage consumption, discourage savings, punish the virtues of planning and thrift, and destroy capital. Corporate taxes are the next worst form of taxation: they are inefficient, they hinder entrepreneurship and production, and the costs are simply passed down to the consumer and employees in the form of higher costs and lower wages. Income taxes and payroll taxes are almost as inefficient: they discourage working, punish labour, and hurt production, they also reduce the amount a worker retains after working. Consumption taxes are the best: they are more efficient, they punish consumption rather production, and they discourage consumerism while promoting savings and thrift.

If we’re going to tax (which everybody but anarcho-capitalists agree we will) we should gain tax revenues from consumption taxes rather than other, worse forms of taxes. Tariffs are a form of consumption tax, but they have an added advantage: they specifically punish the purchase of foreign goods made by foreigners for the profit of foreigners, while general consumption taxes punish all consumption, including the consumption of domestic goods made by domestic workers for domestic profits.

So, if you care about your nation (and if you don’t you are not conservative in any meaningful sense) you should be support tariffs over any other forms of taxation. For any funds needed that can’t be raised through tariffs, we should use consumption taxes. This would have the benefit of promoting the reindustrialization of America and encouraging real growth through savings and investments.

A proper tariffs scheme will also effectively end off-shoring as it would no longer be worthwhile to do so.

Decentralize and Reduce Federal Regulation and Bureaucracy

Conservatives pay this lip service, but rarely do they actually do anything real. Cutting red tape and solving inefficiencies sounds nice to the ignorant, but it is limited. So actually start doing real cuts and and passing more power to the states.

The Department of Education should be immediately eliminated. It serves no purpose and is entirely superfluous, if not actively harmful. Anybody who doesn’t make this a plank of their platform is not meaningfully conservative.

Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services should be rapidly devolved. Agriculture should be eliminated, food safety can be spun off to its own small agency. Transport should be heavily slashed; any ground-based regulations should be devolved to the states. Energy should be eliminated; their laboratories and regulatory functions sold ot devolved and nuclear weapons programs moved to Defence. Labour should be devolved. Commerce should be slashed, limited to foreign trade and statistics. Veteran’s affairs should be placed under Defence, and Defence should be slashed to the point where the US has no more troops in foreign countries we are not enagaged in war with. State should be slashed as the US reduces foreign entanglements.

End Student Loans

I’ve already gone in depth how the tuition bubble is economically raping and enslaving our young, leading to a massive economic waste as people pursue the empty status-signalling of degrees.

If we simply stop all federal student loans (and any other government post-secondary education subsidies) and make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy like all other loans, the problem will mostly right itself. Banks will only loan out to students they are sure they can make a profit from (ie. those who can make use of a degree), while the intellectually deserving will still get scholarships. With fewer people going to college, degrees will no longer be necessary status signals to get jobs where post-secondary education is not necessary.

Eliminate Mortagage Insurance and Securitization

I’ve went over this before, housing is mostly a positional good. Easy and cheap mortgages raise demand for housing, accelerating out of control housing costs, and making people house poor. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, and any other federal organization dedicated to securing, insuring, backing, or otherwise making loans easier to obtain should be eliminated. The lenders should be solely liable for any mortgages they lend out with no government involvement. This will makes mortgages harder to obtain, lower house prices, and stabilize the housing market.

Eliminate the Federal Reserve

The Fed destroys savings and real growth and enriches bankers at the expense of the people through manipulating interest rates and money supply. It should be eliminated.

Raise Interest Rates/Stabilize the Money Supply

This is a lesser version of the previous point. If you’re unwilling to end the Fed, then at least set a set schedule in the rate of growth in money supply, preferably a low one to prevent inflation and the subsequent erosion of capital. As well, raise interest rates (slowly, over time, not as a sudden shock) to ensure that we are allocating capital efficiently.

End Illegal Immigration and Minimize Legal Immigration

Wages are low, particularly for low-skill jobs, because we keep increasing the supply of low-skilled immigration. Reduce the labour supply and wages will increase. “Economic efficiency” may suffer slightly (remember what I wrote), but the actual economic health of the nation will improve.

Criminalize Usury

This is the first one that is an actual regulation. Usury is the abomination at the base of most of our economic woes and many of our social woes. It is the fuel of degeneracy. Criminalize it. Usury regulation is traditional and Christian.

Criminalize Credit Cards and Payday Loans

If you’re not willing to fully criminalize usury then at least criminalize credit cards and payday loans. These are the most virulent forms of usury;  prey on and enslave the poor and middle classes and promote hollow consumerism. They prioritize consumption over savings and provide no long-term economic benefit.

Lower the Legal Work Week to 20 hours

As I’ve already shown productivity has increased 500% over the last 70 years, while work hours have only decreased by 12%. The 40-hour week was formalized in 1937, 8 decades ago during a time of massive productivity gains. We should reduce the legal work week to 20 hours. This should not be done all at once, but a slow transition, say, for example, 2 hours a year for 10 years. We’d still be producing far more than we used to, but we’d have more leisure. This would ease the effects of the transition to post-scarcity and create more productive employment for more people while overall work is declining.

Some might argue this is government intrusion in the marketplace, but we’ve already accepted that the government should be allowed to regulate work hours. This is only a difference of degree, not of kind. This objection is only valid from those opposed to any and all limits on work hours and overtime pay.

End Free Incorporation

Incorporation is a government intrusion on the free market. They distorts the free market, promotes big business over consumers, and reduces accountability. They are anti-free market and it should be ended, or rather our current way of using them should be. Maybe We could reinstitute chartered corporations , but we should end free incorporation.

End Government Unions

If we have a government, we will have government workers. They should not be allowed to unionize. Doing so only creates a bribery system for government workers.

Encourage Off-site Work

With the increasing digitization of many white collar jobs, actually going to the office is becoming less necessary as time goes on. All government workers who’s physical presence is not required for them to do their jobs, should be work from home. Hopefully, by setting this example, private businesses will follow. This will result in cost savings, may help improve quality of life, and will have the added long-term benefit of reducing the pressure on urban real estate markets, as commercial office real estate becomes less important.

Inflation: An Abomination unto the Lord

A false balance is an abomination to the LORD,
but a just weight is his delight.(Proverbs 11:1 ESV)

In ancient times, exchange was done through precious metals. You’d have a standard weight against which you would measure these metals for trade purposes. Using a heavier than standard weight when purchasing or a lighter weight when selling would allow you to dishonestly cheat a man out of his wealth, making yourself an extra profit.

These days, we will occasionally discuss usury (student loan debt slavery is a common topic in our sphere), but honest weights and measures are talked of less. What’s there to talk about? We no longer use precious metals for exchange,* so what measures are there to be dishonest about?

Unlike our ancestors, where dishonest weights were the domain of dishonest merchants and criminals, our dishonest weights are a fundamental part of our economic system. We have far surpassed the sin of previous generations in this regards and have made it an ideological mission to rob honest men of wealth through dishonest weights, yet almost no one in the Church speaks against this sinful robbery, this abomination to the Lord.

You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the LORD your God.(Deuteronomy 25:13-16 ESV)

To explain how our system uses dishonest weights and measures, I must first explain the banking system, as the system is designed to make this theft as hard to detect as possible.

Since the end of the Bretton Woods system, the US and most other nations have had a floating exchange rate** where the value of money is determined by foreign exchange markets (forex). Supply and demand on forex can be complex, but, for our purposes, what we need to know is that, generally, as the supply of a particular currency increases (relative to the goods and services the economy it backs produces) the value of the currency decreases. This causes the nominal prices of goods to rise and is called inflation. Likewise, as the supply of a particular currency decreases (relative to the goods and services the economy it backs produces), the value of the currency increases. This causes the nominal prices of goods to fall and is called deflation.

Most countries have a central bank which controls the money supply. In the US, this central bank is called the Federal Reserve. It is supposedly not “owned”, but the private banks which are members of the reserve system each own stock in the Federal Reserve and the Fed is required them to pay a 6% return annually, despite it being “non-profit”.

This is not relevant to my current point, but I I want To make sure you didn’t miss this, so I’ll highlight it again: the Federal Reserve, the quasi-public institution responible for the US’ money-supply, is “not-owned” by private banks and is required, by law, to pay these private banks a 6% (“non-profit”) return each year.

Continuing on, in fractional reserve banking systems, used by every country on earth, the banks get money in two ways: the first by borrowing from the central bank or from deposits. The banks make profit by loaning this money out to others and charging interest greater than the interest they pay the central bank or depositers.

Your normal individual or business deposits money into a bank, at which point the money become the bank’s property, while the depositer receives a deposit account. (Yes, this means you do not actually own the money you have deposited with the bank; the money is actually considered a loan to the bank; a loan which you pay fees to the bank to give them). The bank is only required to keep a fraction of the deposit (loan) in reserve; the majority of the deposit (loan) the bank lends to others at a higher interest rate than the depositer charges the bank.

Despite the deposit being more akin to a loan than a trust, the deposit is still considered money. So the bank’s loan to a customer becomes new money created out of nothing. So, this new loan adds new money to the money supply.

Also, the bank can borrow from the central bank. When it does so, the central bank simply creates new money to lend to the banks, increasing the money supply. The case of the US is unique, in that while the Fed makes the loans, the Treasury actually creates new currency. The bank then lends the money it borrowed from the central bank for a low interest rate to others for a higher interest rate (typically 3% points higher).

Just so you don’t miss this part, I’ll highlight it again: the banks borrow off the Fed and the Treasury (ie. off of you) and then charges you 3% extra interest to loan it back to you. Do you realize yet why banks have such ridiculously high profits? And we aren’t even to the outright thievery yet.

These two ways are how a fractional banking system creates new money.

Unequal weights and unequal measures
are both alike an abomination to the LORD. (Proverbs 20:10 ESV)

I need to point out one more fact: money that has been inflated is worth less than money that hasn’t. That is tautological, so I won’t go into it further, but it is essential to understanding.

The banks rob normal people through dishonest weights and measures in two ways, both lending and borrowing.

First, lending.

When the Treasury creates money and the Feds loan it out, the banks get it first. Individuals and businesses don’t borrow from the Fed, only banks and the government do. When the banks create money using fractional reserve banking, they obviously get the money first.

What this means is that the banks get the (less valuable) inflated currency to loan out into an economy with nominal prices based on (more valuable) non-inflated money. They are loaning out less valuable currency as if it were more valuable. They are loaning you a shaved gold coin as if it were a non-shaved coin.

Because the banks and the government always get the inflated money first and loan it as if it were non-inflated money, they always reap the value difference between inflation and non-inflation as pure profit.

Second, borrowing.

When the bank borrows money from depositers, (ie. when you make a bank deposit), the depositers are lending them non-inflated money. When the depositers withdraw their loan to the bank (ie. you use your debit card or an ATM), they are spending inflated money. The bank gets the difference between the non-inflated and inflated money as pure profit. They are taking gold coins from you and returning them to you shaved.

Given that the interest rates on even “high interest” savings accounts are usually less than inflation rates (0.87% < 2%) most depositers are literally paying the banks to hold their money (and that’s not even including account fees).

Every investment anybody makes is losing money this way. Investors invest in non-inflated money and receive returns in inflated money, and all the excess value siphoned off through inflation is pure, staight profit for the banks and the government.

You could accurately replace ‘inflation’ with ‘money the government and banks steal from me and everybody else’. A 2.5% inflation rate means the government and banks collectively and literally stole 2.5% of all the wealth in the country.

These dishonest weights and measures, this theft, this abomination is not only built into our economy, it is the very basis of our economic system.

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You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 19:35-36 ESV)

In mainstream economics, slow, “stable” inflation (usually in the 1-4% range) is considered desirable, a necessary evil. Keynesians such as Krugman place particular emphasis on maintaining “moderate” levels of inflation (because 1% just isn’t enough).

Here Krugman argues that the average person saving money because it is profitable to do so is wrong, it is a “liquidity trap”. He purposefully and knowningly advocates increasing inflation so more of your wealth is stolen so you will go spend it instead of being robbed.

To the keynesian, this theft is is good, it is praiseworthy. Keynesians are decidedly and purposefully ideologically evil; they know these weights and measures are dishonest and are used to rob you and the average man so that the banks can make a greater profit. They know this, yet they advocate this dishonesty and even mild dishonesty is not enough, they want more.

Is it any wonder keynesians became dominant when their ideology just happens to enrich the banks and government at the expense of the common man.

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If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things (though he himself did none of these things), who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself. (Ezekiel 18:10-13 ESV)

Know this, the socialist fractional reserve, central bank economic system we have is evil. It is detestable, an abomination. It robs the poor to enrich the bankers and the government.

Those lackeys of the banks and government know this and yet they rob you anyway.

Every Christian, every man of any morality, should be fighting the banks, the Fed, the government, and the keynesians. They are evil, they are thieves, and they purposefully robbing and oppressing the average man.

Eventually, hopefully, there inequities will come to light and justice can be enacted.

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* I am not going to get into the problems of fiat currency here, it is related, but not what I am going to focus on.

** While I leans towards the gold standard, a floating exchange rate on a free market is not, in itself, a dishonest measure. I would support a free, open-market of currency, where any individual or organization could adopt or offer their own competitive form of exchange. Also, even though I would be against it, I do not think a reserve currency monopoly where currency levels are kept stable and new currency released at a set, predefined rate would be dishonest.