Obama government now decided that destroying the housing market is not good enough, there needs to be more government initiated and mandated destruction, this time related to the contraceptives.

The idea is that women must be able to get "free" contraceptives as part of their health insurance package provided by their employer or insurance company, and this must be specifically done without co-pay, so the entire cost must be absorbed by the provider or employer.

Well, just like the Affordable Housing Act that helped to initiate and mandate the eventual housing bubble and collapse, this will also cause something similar though it will be expressed in a different manner.

1. Mandating that insurance provides a specific product regardless of the wishes of the customers is unconstitutional. A sterile woman or a woman who is perfectly happy to buy her own contraception would still have to receive an 'insurance' package from the employer or insurance company that would include this particular product.

2. There is nothing free about government mandates, somebody always ends up paying. So the real payment will be deducted from the wage, fewer women will also be hired, as there will be more potential for lawsuits based on wage inequality, after all, if women are going to be paid less dollars and be paid in condoms instead, this of-course would also violate other government mandates. Otherwise everybody's wages will have to come down, are you ready to be paid in condoms?

3. Why would men buy contraceptives at all (unless gay or dating somebody who is unemployed and uninsured)? So almost all contraceptives will be paid for this way, of-course usage will go up dramatically, as everybody will be asking for more and more of condoms and other contraceptives. Why not? If it's part of pay, just get boxes of them. Use them for anything. Need gloves? Party balloons? How about reselling them to other countries on a side? Great way to subsidise your income by reselling supposedly 'free' condoms' and OTHER contraceptives.

4. Whatever is subsidised ends up used more. Women who didn't take the pills before, now they can do so for free, so why not? Some women moderate their cycles this way, never mind birth control. Again, more artificial demand.

5. The manufacturers will not be competing on price anymore, they can come up with new versions of contraceptives and raise the prices and employers and insurance will have to cover it anyway, so it's going to be not a competition for the pocket of the direct client, but now competition for a subsidy, this is exactly why health care and education and other government subsidised things are so much more expensive than what happens in the normal free market. Prices for condoms and other contraceptives will skyrocket, NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO AFFORD THEM OUT OF POCKET, especially not the young, and not those without jobs.

6. With prices skyrocketing there will be more incidents of unwanted pregnancies and more incidents of STDs.

7. Part of employee wage now will be paid in condoms - so this is not going to be taxed, so even less income taxes will be collected from the employees, so this is another reason for employees to gang up and vote against employers and those who actually do pay income taxes, so income taxes of higher paid individuals will have to be pushed up again. Oh well, it's not a 'class war', is it? Of-course this will just lead to more deficit spending and counterfeiting.

8. Of-course this distorts what insurance is about - insurance is about unexpected expensive problems, not about expected everyday purchases. Insurance is not a managed health account, and doing it this way will cause higher prices for everybody.

9. Everybody will be getting the most expensive contraceptive they can find for free, why not? People will be using multiple contraceptives at the same time, why not? Not that there is anything wrong with using multiple contraceptives, but that's when you do it on your own terms, not because it's free all of a sudden, but of-course it's not free. Manufacturers will have no reason to compete on price at all.

10. Even if there will be some sort of limit on the number of contraceptives one will get for 'free' in a month, everything still applies, but now it's even worse - it's a person asking PERMISSION from GOVERNMENT to fuck for 'free' and then any extra times will have to be paid for out of pocket anyway, and with obviously higher prices for those contraceptives and with less salary.

11. The slippery slope argument can also be applied - why shouldn't insurance company and employer be forced to provide free food? Free clothing? Free shelter? Nothing is free of-course, but it's an interesting way for government to push people into something of a barter economy instead of using money as pay, and reduce people's choices as to how they are paid and how they can spend their money.

In any case, one thing is obvious, nobody in government takes economics seriously as long as they can use politics of it to buy cheap votes of the majority, who are employees, who don't understand economics at all, but do like to get 'free' stuff. Those are the same people that will be complaining later on that there is 'income inequality'.

Well of-course there is more and more income inequality, and it's all created with ideas like this.

Since I put a lengthy comment on the topic, explaining that income taxes are illegal and are collected illegally, I am going to link to it here, since it could be a useful reference at some other time. It has the arguments and plenty of referential material in it.

It is amazing what length a government can go into to steal some more people's freedoms and money and create so called 'jobs'.

Now there is a new type of police force to prevent people from playing a ball on a beach unless it is a 'beach ball' or a 'volleyball'.

One can't dig a hole that's deeper than 18 inches, but government now can hire people as defined in section 13 of that document:

"Each member of the Beach Commission shall serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors.

A. The term for each Commission member shall be four years...

Section 16: Code enforcement officer - an employee of the Department of Beaches and Harbors who has been authorised to enforce any and all statues, ordinances, regulations, or policies pertaining to the beaches....

Section 17: Director

New licenses must be acquired as described in section 20.

Fines for violation are described in section 28 - a violation of sections ... is a misdemeanor and the fine is not to exceed USD1000 and/or imprisonment in the County Jail for up to 6 month (or both, a fine and an imprisonment).

(And government insists there is no inflation?)

Some of the regulations:

Section 30: digging prohibited of a hole deeper than 18 inches, and vertical sand structures are prohibited (unless there is a license)

Section 42. License required to set canopies or tents or to 'use amplified sound'.

Section 43: something about nudity and disrobing.

Section 44: smoking prohibited.

Section 45: model operation prohibited (so can't float a toy boat).

Section 49: It is unlawful for any person to cast, toss, throw, kick or roll any ball, tube, or any light object other than beach ball or beach volleyball (unless there is a license).

Section 51: prohibition to swim beyond 200 yards seaward.

Section 53: A person shall not use, POSSESS, or operate in the Pacific Ocean opposite to any beach regulated by this Part 3 a sailboat, kite board, surfboard, paddleboard, ocean kayak, surf ski, rigid hull surf-craft or similar device other than a surfmat or bodyboard, at such times when the ocean is restricted for swimming and bathing only (and except within 200 yards from shore or 750 yards seaward of the point at which the farthest wave is breaking, whichever distance is greater, or when used by a skin diver)

Section 54: No person shall hand glide, paraglide, or parasail on, from, or above any beach, cliff, or bluff adjacent to a beach that is owned, controlled or managed by the County (unless with a license).

I liked this novel more than the rest of Rand's books, while it wasn't as down with the reality and history as 'We the Living', this one wasn't an attempt at science fiction and a gospel at the same time, it was more honest, it wasn't trying to provide a reason for why a person should want his own individual freedoms as much as Atlas was. The people in it were not portrayed being as super-human as they were in Atlas and the story line and the ending were much more plausible.

Atlas of-course, is what is currently happening, not because there is a massive conscious attempt at putting capital on strike, but because Asia provides a good alternative for engaging in relatively free enterprise and gold is not illegal to hold (yet), so putting capital on strike and moving savings and investment out of the failing currencies and economies is done organically without really too much of an ideology, just based on competition alone.

On the other hand the Fountainhead is sending a similar message in less contrived terms and it is actually more interesting to read for anybody concerned not only with the message in the book, but also from point of view of learning something new from the writing, in this case something that most people probably never think of too much - architecture and construction, and it shows that Rand spent plenty of time researching in this area, and she did, apparently she worked for free for over half a year as a typist in architecture bureau just to understand the trade.

I think this is her best book, it provides more than just a message, it provides a good setting for it as well, and also I think it is more honest in many ways, including views on sexuality. Definitely Atlas had to be written after the Fountainhead, compare Dominique and Dagny, even their names are telling something different, never mind their roles and behaviour. What's interesting though is that in a sense Dominique and Lillian Rearden have something in common, but only in their methods, their goals are quite different.

The theme of the corruption of the courts is raised in We the Living, the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but only in the Fountainhead the jury appear not be corrupted enough by the system yet, while in We the Living, the new provisional government of the USSR was completely corrupt and so was the court in Atlas.

It almost seems that this is a trilogy, where the first book shows the history of going towards socialism in one country, the Fountainhead shows a transitional period in a relatively free society towards socialism and Atlas Shrugged finishes the journey for the entire planet causing massive inevitable collapse and a glimmer of a possible salvation through restoration of freedom at the end.

I think these books should be viewed as a trilogy, they do have many in common elements, they go over the same concepts from different perspectives and what's most important, they are stylized versions of what has actually happened, what is still happening and what is about to happen, so it's a strong recommendation.

When the ideal that you are chasing the entire life betrays you, you die.

However what matters is that while you are chasing the ideal you are Living.

Requiem for Marx by Yuri Maltsev, defector from the former USSR, former economic advisor to Gorbachev and Professor of Economics at the Carthage College in Wisconsin and is a Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

Interview with Yuri Maltsev (starts at 41:40) - talks about his defection, his work in the former USSR and USA and the change that he sees in USA, that he believes is going to take the society towards violent socialism (as no socialism can exist with government violence).

Finally, after almost 3 decades of just hearing about this book, I decided to read it, simply because I am quite tired of the people answering to my comments with: "put away Atlas Shrugged". I never held it in my hands before so now at least this type of commentary will have some merit.

I read it now, it's very good, I understood the meaning in it simply because I came to the same conclusions on my own long ago, and this was just a nice summary put into a somewhat interesting half science fiction, half detective novel. Of-course it was fairly easy to understand most of the 'mystery' of the detective portion of it even from the first part, the plot was easy to figure out, so if you are just looking to be surprised with a good detective story, it's not for you (unless you are easily surprised.)

The narrative is very straight forward and easy to read, mostly. It takes about 2 full days to finish all 3 parts.

As an atheist it's interesting to see Rand attack the religious believes of a large portion of the population through this book, now I understand why so many religious folks hated it. The good and bad are shown for what they are - the self-sacrifice is properly displayed for being in reality contradictory to the very concept of justice. Of-course it is unjust that the best people are being sacrificed by the worst and the mediocre and the average on the altair of what these mediocre and average people believe to be their right because they understand that they are weak and thus they believe they deserve compassion. They believe they deserve the sacrifice of the strong. They want the strong to sacrifice themselves to the weak and they want the strong to believe that this is the right thing to do as well, so that the weak can feel that they are free of guilt of requiring this sort of masochism from those, who really don't deserve to be sacrificed.

So in the most basic sense, the main protagonist - John Galt is a creator, who decides that he will not allow the crowd to sacrifice him to their wants and needs simply because they are weaker than them, and he refuses even to feel bad about it, which removes all leverage from the crowd that they could use to force him into this sacrifice. To the religious this is an atrocity, John Galt becomes the Anti-Christ, because of-course, Christ is a god (or part of god, or whatever that religion does with the 1 x 3 god ratio), so Christ is the ultimate Creator, and he is the strongest, and the weak want him to sacrifice himself, they want him to die for them and simultaneously to take away their own responsibility for his demise.

The crowd wants Christ to do so and Christ does it, but John Galt does not. John Galt thus is the Anti-Christ - a powerful creator that they want to sacrifice for them, to be their slave while abdicating them from all of the responsibility, giving them everything, the material and the spiritual safety with his own life.

This is the the main theme of the book - the weak requiring the sacrifice of the strong and motivating it simply with the fact of their own weakness, lack of desire or ability to take care of themselves. The strong telling them - get out of my way and you will get what you desire, do not require me to sacrifice myself but let me live and you will get fruits of my labour but you will pay the fair price for it so that I would not have to sacrifice my life for you in this unjust manner, that also requires me to take away your responsibility not just for you stealing the fruits of my labour, but also for you stealing my own morality for me, forcing me to accept that I must be responsible for you in an unnatural unjust manner, not requiring anything in return for this work.

The book uses multiple examples of this type of behaviour on all sides, from those who take care of themselves and by proxy of the market and the rest of the people, to those who expect the sacrificial behaviour, to those who don't expect it, but are uninterested in changing the status-quo and are simply going with the flow of things.

In the book all of the nations are going in that same direction and the USA is portrayed as the last of the nations that is still standing on its own feet, the last one to be destroyed by this socialist movement.

I think the only real criticism of the idea that I can come up with is of 3-fold.

1. Some of the characters are too thoughtful, they are too rational, I would say too theoretical in their thinking, I am not sure that too many people think too much. I don't believe that the majority of really good business people would listen to somebody like John Galt, so they wouldn't become his disciples and leave the system to disintegrate, people are not that intelligent, they would stay in the system much longer and would keep doing what they do mostly by inertia and false hope.

2. A socialist system is capable of prolonging its suffering for longer than just a decade or two, I think especially given the power and wealth that is collected over a few generations in a free society cannot be dissipated that quickly, not in 12 years, not even in 50 years. Given the fact that Rand correctly showed that the only innovation that takes place in a powerful formerly free society is military driven, it's unlikely that the knowledge could be lost so quickly. The inertia in the system would keep the society going for a longer period of time, we know this for sure, after all USSR lasted for about 75 years and USA is still going despite the 1913, 1929, 1971 and 2008, it's quite impressive actually how long the road to total destruction is. Of-course Rand shows correctly that the end will be self-destruction through all of the banditism and wars and hunger once the business leaves and lets the system digest itself and collapse as that huge oak tree that was struck by a lightning, but it collapsed because its core was rotten and it could no longer stand on its own.

3. It is a rarity today or any day to see a very smart individual who is a real creator - from ideas to implementations to business and even to being near perfect in every way themselves, it's an idealistic view, not a realistic one. But I am pretty sure that it is not that Ayn Rand believed herself in that image, but she really was building a stark contrast between the polar opposites of who she was writing about, so she just wanted to distil the naked concepts into sometimes unbearably rational and intelligent individuals who don't really exist in the world, but it's one way to bring the point across. It's not completely black and white that way in real life, but fundamentally it is the reality and I think some of the criticism is just that - that you don't see people like that in real life. Well no, don't often see that, I think Apple computer or Google or Facebook today are much better examples than Rearden with his metal and Dagny with her trains and I am unconvinced that the people behind Google, Facebook and Apple are as rational and intelligent and so self-reliant as the characters in Atlas Shrugged, but they don't have to be, they are still a good enough approximation. On the other hand the politicians as they are shown in the novell I think are much closer to the true individuals found in politics everywhere, and the average people are probably also closer to the average people the book portrays. Of-course it had to be done that way, because that is how Rand wrote, that was her way of quickly brining the point across (even if 'quickly' takes a bit over 2 days to read).

Of-course Bible also had very unbelievable characters, but at least the New Testament was created based on the exact opposite idea - that the strong must self-sacrifice for the weak and they must forgive the transgressions and the sins of the weak and they must accept their own sacrifice and take the responsibility for this away from their 'flock'.

I read a few reviews of the book after I read it myself and I find that the criticism suggested by others, especially those who did not like the novel is really lacking in the understanding of the meaning of what they just read or it is a complete denial, not of the book even, but of the idea that self-sacrifice of the strong for the benefit of the weak is unjust. I think they missed the fact that they are the characters from the book.

The main positions that the author takes are these:

1. Government is inherently evil but it has to exist to do a few things, like provide border security, protect individual freedoms, and criminal and contract law.

2. Taxing labour, work, production, income is morally wrong and it also turns out to be a bad economic practice.

3. Allowing government to regulate individuals in business, taking away rights, like the property right, right of speech, etc., all of this must not be allowed, otherwise the society falls apart.

4. Going alone with the society on the so called 'social-contract' that one did not sign is self-sacrifice for the benefit of the bandits, who are looking for that sacrifice and they are looking to everybody to give them the justification that their expectations are good and moral. Sacrificing self for the benefit of others is always wrong, because it goes against the morality of living and also it ends up destroying the economy and enslaving people, everybody, regardless of their position on things. Sacrificing self only puts the weapons into the hands of these bandits - politicians, sociologists, philosophers, judges, various corporate groups that are benefiting from close ties to the government.

5. The crowd is used as leverage against its own long term interests because the crowd only is interested in short term gains and it has no problem sacrificing somebody, in fact it's looking to sacrifice somebody immediately to achieve those short term gains and further destroying any long term profits.

6. Allowing government to set the standard for what money is, is a horrible idea and practice, because destroys money but that means it destroys investments and productivity and labour and economy and society and promotes violence and destruction.

Conclusion: the book is a good read, but by looking at various other reviews it's clear that it does not change the position of those, who are on the opposite side of this idea.

29 of March 2004, the interview is with Irwin Schiff, the tax protester who is spending a 12 year sentence in federal prison.

In that interview Irwin Schiff is talking about some of his books, "Biggest Con" and "The Federal Mafia", as well as making accurate predictions about the incoming housing crisis, debt crisis, economic crisis, education crisis in USA. Mr. Schiff is talking about the reasons for the incoming problems and he is giving an interesting look at the history of US over the past 100 years and how economy was changing. Also throughout the interview (really, it has to be viewed fully to see all of the points), Irwin Schiff shows that the income taxes in USA are voluntary and are collected illegally.

Chinese Sustainable Building Company, Broad Group, put together a 30 story hotel in 360 hours or 15 around the clock days of work out of structures pre-manufactured on a factory floor. The feat was accomplished in December of 2011. Using a factory floor to assemble floors and side panels allowed for very high precision in fabrication (+/- 0.2mm), better coordination of on-site construction, shorter construction time span, lower construction waste. The building includes various innovative features, such as air monitoring in every room and low energy consumption.

All of the wiring and laying of the pipes, insulation, even floor tiles is done on the factory floor as can be seen in the video. As one of the features, the building is designed to withstand magnitude-9 earthquakes.

This goes to prove a point, that innovation comes out of manufacturing and engineering needs, which means that research and development and basic sciences and need for more education is also pushed by the engineering and manufacturing sectors.

On the December 31, 2011, President of the USA, Barack Hussein Obama II has signed the National Defense Authorization Act.

In itself this wouldn't be anything out of ordinary, indeed NDAAs have been signed for years, however this one, for the fiscal year of 2012 is different in an important way, because it ends the Democratic Republic of USA and installs a dictatorial power of the 'elected' POTUS.

The MSM propaganda machine has been deployed to ensure that the population of USA (and probably of the world) does not understand that it was the President himself, who required that the current NDAA, which has provisions for 'indefinite detention' of 'suspected terrorists' by the military would also apply these powers against US citizens, which means that at this point the POTUS (any POTUS, Obama or anybody who comes after him), can capture and detain anybody in the world, including US citizens and hold them in military containment without a trial, without even possibility to contact any lawyers for any length of time.

This is clearly a complete violation of human rights, US citizen rights, the Constitution and the power of POTUS, who forced Congress to remove provisions from NDAA that would exclude the US citizens from these super dictatorial powers that the POTUS has assigned to himself.

You can read an MSM story for an example of how the MSM is used to confuse the issue, to make it seem that Obama was trying to do the right, the Constitutional thing, while in reality it is Obama who insisted that NDAA could not be signed without all of the provisions necessary to become a dictator.

At this point it is clear that the powers that govern USA are making their last preparations before the USD collapses and ensures the survival of the elite with this dictatorial nonsense and basically establishment of the martial law.

Say hello now to the Fourth Reich, say goodbye to any pretense of being a democratic republic.

Iowa caucuses are coming up in a few days, everybody is looking at that, I think Ron Paul has more chances than anybody else there, however few people are thinking beyond Iowa, but there is an interesting case of West Virginia now, where only Romney and Paul are registered for Republican primaries.

Here is something you might not have known: in West Virginia anybody can participate in the caucuses, regardless of party denomination! That's right, but since only Paul and Romney are registered, who do you think is more likely to win that State if one doesn't have to be a Republican to vote?

I believe if Ron Paul takes Iowa and comes within the first 3 in NH, he'll take Virginia.

South Carolina is also his for losing, and given this, I think the rest of the States can be swayed.

I don't think Texans are dumb enough to vote for Perry over Paul also, by the way.

Connecticut is Paul's and this should give him a real boost in New York.

India Moves To Censor Social Media http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/06/231228/india-moves-to-censor-social-media

Russian Websites Critical of Elections Targeted In DDoS Attack http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2557796&cid=38259624

Interpreting the Constitution In the Digital Era http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2556930&cid=38250212

Why America Doesn't Need More Tech Giants Like Apple http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2550822&cid=38213416 (chinese salaries)

China Probes US Renewable Energy Policy http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2546330&cid=38184848 (Steve Jobs argument to stop
taxes)

Hard Drive Prices Up 150% In Less Than Two Months http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2544838&cid=38169958

Climate May Be Less Sensitive To CO2 Than Previously Thought http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2544398&cid=38166022 (go
nuclear)

OSHA App Costs Gov't $200k http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2541628&cid=38154444 (USPS is subsidized and failing. Forever
stamps.)

A Drone Helicopter That Can Land On a Moving Truck http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2536050&cid=38122678 (more money on war
based economy)

OpenSUSE 12.1 Released http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2529350&cid=38099264 (insane chick arguing with me)

Rambus Loses $4B Antitrust Case http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2529836&cid=38080384 (imagine world without patents)

Back in 2009 Paul Krugman said this about the 787 Billion dollar bail out

Now, if that in Paul Krugman's eyes wasn't 'big enough' to fix the problem, then I assume he wanted a much bigger bail out, correct?

Now we find out that the real bail out was given out by the federal reserve and it was at least 7.7 TRILLION dollars, that's 11 times the official bail out voted by the US Congress. Even that's not true. The bail out was over 13 TRILLION.

The obvious failures of Keynesian ideas are immediately obvious - it's never big enough, they say. Well, what if it was bigger than your GDP? Is that big enough?

It's always easy to say for a Keynesian - the bail out is not big enough so that's why the economy didn't recover. Then the truth about the actual size of the bail out comes out. What now? What now?

Will Krugman say now that the real bail out should have been not 7 or 13 Trillion but instead it should have been 700 Trillion to have worked?

Should it have been 700 Quadrillion?

What now? When will it become obvious even to the most dense Keynesian followers that their ideology is fatally flawed?

It should be obvious to anybody by now that price and wage controls set by governments don't work. These ideas end up creating unemployment and black markets. But what about minimum wage, which is also a type of a wage control?

Well, minimum wage makes it illegal to hire somebody below a certain price (7.25 in US, but may differ to the higher side from State to State). What does it mean from point of view of employees?

1. This doesn't affect those who work above the minimum wage.
2. Those who work below minimum wage are suddenly priced out of their jobs.

What does this mean? If somebody only has the skills necessary to provide a company with about 3-4 dollars worth of benefit (profit) are now a net loss for a company if the minimum wage is above that amount of money. So hiring somebody at 7.25, who after all expenses only generates the company say 4 dollars makes absolutely no sense. Who is affected by this? Students, people who didn't even go to school, anybody who is just starting out.

When governments sets a floor price for a product, it makes it illegal for those, who cannot afford the item (or labor) below that price to buy that product. Some believe it makes sense to have government set the minimum wage, what would these people say about government setting minimum price on milk for example?

If milk had a government dictated minimum price of $5/liter, this would price a lot of people out of buying milk, this also would put many milk producers out of business, because now they have a much smaller customer base, much fewer dollars in that market.

So if you believe that it makes sense for government to set minimum prices, think about government setting minimum price of milk, or whatever your preferred product and think what this means from point of view of competition as well. So now it's illegal to sell milk at a lower price, this prevents any new competition from entering the market, trying to produce milk cheaper, because they can't even sell it legally.

Setting minimum price on labor creates similar problems, and with real unemployment being where it is (above 20% in US, see shadow statistics), it's preposterous that government talks about fixing unemployment without actually dealing with all of the regulations that it has on the books that actually creates unemployment.

From minimum wage laws, to 'equal opportunity employment' laws, any so called 'civil rights', which are just entitlements and obligations, which make it more expensive to hire people who have special government protections. Anything that government does regulating business, causes labor costs to go only in one direction, and that's the opposite direction to where they must be going.

---

Now realize that the government is schizophrenic, because on one hand it sets minimum wage and on the other it creates inflation, which in reality only 'helps' to grow economy (from Keynesian perspective) actually by reducing the purchasing power, it really only 'works' by lowering the actual earnings of a worker!

Yes, inflation (counterfeiting or money printing) is all about stealing the purchasing power, and when the Fed says it has a mandate to ensure price stability and maximum employment, it should admit that its mandate is a direct contradiction of the only tool in Fed's disposal - the printing press (figuratively speaking, they don't even have to print physical cash to increase the money supply.)

Some old stuff, explaining gov't power over people and the solutions.