Credit and price inflation

Karl Denninger understands the intrinsic connection between the two:

The availability of “cheap credit” has made everything from houses to furniture to TVs to cell phones to cars more expensive.  Virtually everyone shops a “payment” now instead of a price. 

Why else would you hear all the car dealers telling you how they can get you into a new car for “two-ninety-nine!” instead of telling you the price is $24,923? 

That’s simple — everyone buys a payment.

House — same deal.  Do you qualify for a house or for a payment? You know the answer — and the big scam nowdays (and has been for the last decade) is finding ways to get around the down payment — actual cash on the table has been reduced to record lows, with the goal for many being zero.

Then there’s student loans, as Taibbi recently went off on and which I’ve been covering for years.  They are alleged to make college “more accessible.”  Nonsense; what they do is enslave young people who are our most-vulnerable due to lack of life experience and being that these debts cannot be discharged except under extraordinary circumstance they’re one of the worst forms of debt slavery.

The truth is that the basic laws of economics tell you that when there are more buyers willing to pay a given price irrespective of how or why the price of that item will tend to rise.  This is true whether the thing is a car, a house, health care, college tuition or anything else.

Ultimately this forces anyone who wants said thing to use credit to obtain it as the ability to pay cash dwindles away.

And that, ultimately, destroys the middle class by making the true cost of such pulled-forward demand rise so high that it cannot be afforded at all.

So long as the government coerces this behavior for its own benefit so it can hand out money to its favored few, whether those be “poor” people (with iPhones of course) or defense contractors this cycle continues until it is either voluntarily abandoned or it is forced to stop by impact with the zero boundary.

“Impact with the zero boundary” is exactly what I described in my “limits of demand” in which I suggested an alternative mechanism for the Austrian Business Cycle. This points to the core flaw of the inflationista perspective, which is that even if the government prints an unlimited amount of money, it still has to somehow get into the hands of the people who are going to spend it on goods and services.

The federal government does an amount of this through its income transfer programs, which are now better understood as distributed inflation programs. The problem is that the very act of distribution tends to reduce the willingness of the recipients to do anything productive, as could be seen in this Rattlife clip from Fox News.  And the horrified tone of the reporter explains why significantly expanding these programs is politically untenable; keep in mind they would need to increase by a factor of more than TWENTY in order to compensate for five years of credit disinflation.

That leaves expanding the credit base as the other option, which is precisely what the Federal Reserve has been trying to do.  But here it runs into the “pushing on a string” problem due to its inability to print more borrowers.  It’s not so much that the banks won’t lend as the banks can’t find anyone credible to lend to as about 40 percent of the loans they are presently holding are already in default.

About the only thing the federal government can do at this point is expand its student loan guarantees to the home mortgage and credit card markets. However, that terrifies Fed officials, who are already looking at the fact that only 10.8 million of the 28 million federal student loan borrowers in the US are making any payments on their student loans.

Which points to the quasi-Soviet nature of the problem where the federal government pretends to give money to banks to lend out to borrowers and the borrowers pretend they are going to pay it back. Expanding the sham to mortgages and credit cards may buy a little more time, but it’s not going to fix anything. It is certainly not a credible basis for economic growth.

Mailvox: answering a simple question

Will Shetterly poses questions for me and for NK Jemisin. I don’t know if she will see fit to answer him, but I certainly don’t mind doing so:

What do you want, besides book sales? You both have strongly-held beliefs, Critical Race Theory and Human Biodiversity, but you’re both silent about the practical application of those beliefs.

Vox Day, you say:

“I have repeatedly pointed out that the existence of different human
sub-species and/or races does not make those different sub-species
and/or races any less validly human. A dog is a dog whether it is a
Bichon Frise or a Great Dane. A man is a man whether he is Yoruba or
Prussian. My basic argument on race and civilization can be most
accurately summarized as the observation that if you wish to pull a
sled, you would be well advised to select Siberian huskies rather than
chihuahuas or pit bulls.”

If people with your beliefs were in power, what changes would there be?
Legal segregation of the races as you understand them? A ban on
miscegenation? Breeding programs to increase the virtues you see in the
different human races, stronger blacks and smarter Asians to serve the
more “alpha” whites?

Let me first point out something that many people fail to keep in mind when they are occupied with being offended at something I have said. I am a libertarian, so it should always be kept in mind that I am intrinsically skeptical of the idea that government can be effectively utilized to solve most societal problems, or even avoid making them worse, regardless of how serious we all agree those problems happen to be.  The fact that I point to something as being a problem should NEVER be taken as an implicit suggestion that the solution can be found in government action.

With regards to race, I would be more than content to see the U.S. federal government and other governments across the West firmly respect the right to self-determination, the right to free speech, and the right to freedom of economic association on the part of individual, as well as the political sovereignty of the several States.

This would likely lead to legal segregation in some states, most likely beginning, ironically enough, with the States where Hispanics are expected to soon be the majority. In most of the rest, I expect a return to Constitutional federalism and the concept of democratic laboratories would merely lead to bans on enforced desegregation and government violations of the freedom of association; history indicates that people have a tendency to naturally segregate as that is how most of the various population groups were formed in the first place.

I do not support bans on miscegenation nor do I believe they would be required in any environment that permitted genuine freedom of speech and association. Despite being inundated with heavy doses of pro-miscegenation and pro-equalitarian propaganda in the media, relatively few women of any race have shown themselves to be open to sexual involvement with men of other races.

Being an anti-eugenicist, I do not support breeding programs of any kind, especially not government-sponsored programs.

As for the idea of stronger blacks and smarter Asians serving whites, that could not be further from my own position on ideal interracial relations. My belief is that every population group, every human sub-species, every nation, is better served by furthering a homogeneous group interest.  To put it crudely, whites would do well to pick their own cotton and count their own money, blacks would do well to build their own power stations and grow their own crops, and yellows would do well to develop their own technologies and establish their own university systems. Let Israel be Israel and let Myanmar be Myanmar.

Inter-societal communication and assistance is a good thing, so long as it is the sort that involves teaching men to fish and not fishing for them… and if the fishermen are left alone to deal with the consequences of their catch. Trade is generally good. Information exchange is generally good. Even immigration can beneficial in small and limited doses. But the benefits of moderation does not extend to the extremes. For example, trade can benefit both sides, but truly free trade will inevitably destroy the more prosperous side.

It should be noted that the consequences of mass migration are all but indistinguishable from the effects of invasion and occupation, and multi-ethnic societies have shown a strong historical tendency to collapse amidst vicious ethnic violence. No one who recalls the intra-black violence in Rwanda, the intra-white violence in Yugoslavia, or the intra-yellow violence in Vietnam should be misled into thinking that expanding the range of population heterogeneousity is going to alleviate, rather than exacerbate, the eventual inter-ethnic violence.  Ms Jemisin may be more right than she knows about how everyone will eventually be forced to take a side, whether they want to or not.

I understand that three generations of Americans who have been raised to venerate the Civil Rights movement will find it hard, if not impossible, to grasp that history may ultimately prove to be firmly on the side of those they have always believed to be monsters of bigotry. But if what logic suggests is the most probable outcome indeed comes to pass, I suspect that forced segregation and non-violent ethnic cleansing will be the best case scenario in consequence of the damnable social engineering of the grand multicultural experiment that began in 1965.

It may already be too late for a peaceful return to historical segregation patterns. But if history is an even remotely reliable guide, the West will return to them one way or another. And keep in mind that my expectations of the future have nothing whatsoever to do with my personal preferences, any more than I wanted to see the global financial system seize up when I predicted the 2008 economic crisis six years before it happened.

There is a flaw in someone’s assumptions. The error may be on my part. But based on the known historical patterns as well as the way in which increased integration throughout the West has observably increased racial tensions rather than eliminating them as the multiculturalists so confidently asserted, I very much doubt it.

So, to answer the original question, what do I want? I want to preserve the greatest, most advanced, and most humane civilization the human race has ever known. I want the West to avoid descending into violence and chaos on a scale that will threaten to end our advanced civilization as we know it. And I believe continued mass migration, forced desegregation, reconciliation, government intervention, and racial integration only serve to increase the likelihood of a nightmarish scenario taking place.

The rule of dynamic law

Now that it has been successfully established that Americans can be taxed for not engaging in economic activity, I suppose it makes sense that they can be charged with committing crimes by not engaging in it too.

The saga of Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is getting even more ridiculous, as he explains that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order:

    … a source familiar with the matter told NBC News that James Trump, a senior litigation counsel in the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., sent an email to Levison’s lawyer last Thursday – the day Lavabit was shuttered — stating that Levison may have “violated the court order,” a statement that was interpreted as a possible threat to charge Levison with contempt of court.

That same article suggests that the decision to shut down Lavabit was over something much bigger than just looking at one individual’s information — since it appears that Lavabit has cooperated in the past on such cases. Instead, the suggestion now is that the government was seeking a tap on all accounts

If you do not understand that the USA is now a legally totalitarian country where the law is whatever the government employee claiming jurisdiction declares it to be, you do not understand the difference between the absence of a limit and the observable willingness to exploit that absence.  The fact that the absence of limits are not presently being exploited in full should not cause one to imagine that the limits are still in place.

I suspect that only factors presently restraining the federal government from attempting to test how far they can go in the absence of those legal limits is a) the fact that the American people are very well-armed, and, b) the precarious state of the economy.

McRapey retreats

You may recall that for the last nine months John Scalzi has been lying about his average daily blog readers.

John Scalzi @scalzi 6:20 AM – 4 Dec 12
Hey, authors of non-traditionally published books! Promote your book to my 50K daily blog readers TODAY: http://bit.ly/TzNsdl

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi 3:33 PM – 10 Aug 13
@gregpak I think if people like the content they will keep coming in regardless. I mean, my site gets 50K readers a day

Four days after I busted him for exaggerating his daily readership by a mere 46,000 readers, he abruptly, and for no particular reason at all, retreated to his previous claim of UP TO 50k readers.

piovere ‏@piovere 4:44 PM – 16 Aug 13
@scalzi via what means do you get these many ARCs? I ha thought it was SFWA related, but I guess not?

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi 4:45 PM – 16 Aug 13
@piovere It’s related to having 50K Twitter followers and up to 50K daily readers of the blog, many of whom like SF/F.

While it is technically true, McRapey’s claim about having up to 50k daily readers of his blog is more than a little misleading considering how much smaller his average daily blog readership is.  Come clean, Johnny. Be honest about your site traffic. Just do what I do and post your numbers for the public to see. You’ll sleep better at night knowing that even if everyone knows you’re less popular than all your friends thought you were, at least you’re not a fraud… in this regard.

Besides, you know that if you don’t, someone else just might do it for you. For no particular reason at all.

Book review: Hard Magic

Jonathan Moeller reviewed Hard Magic by Larry Correia.

Based on the cover art, I picked up this book anticipating something
along the lines of THE DRESDEN FILES or GARRETT, P.I – you know, a
hardbitten private investigator solves crimes involving supernatural
creatures while dealing with the ever-evolving mess that is his personal
and/or love life. (Depending on the skill of the writer in question,
the series might eventually degenerate into an endless sequence of
werewolf-on-vampire romantic interludes.)

HARD MAGIC is nothing like that.

It is speculative fiction in the purest sense of the word – changing
one element of human history or technology and asking “what if?” from
the question. In the case of this book, the premise is that in the
mid-19th century, humans started developing magical powers for unknown
reasons. As one might expect, this played havoc with quite a few
different aspects of human society – World War I was bad, but World War I
with zombies and fire wizards was much worse.

HARD MAGIC opens at the start of the Great Depression. Despite the
Depression, the world is at peace – Nikola Tesla figured out how to use
magic to build his fabled teleforce Death Ray,
and Tesla’ s “Peace Rays” have made war obsolete…or so claims the
government. Jake Sullivan, an ex-con with magical superstrength, is
recruited by the Bureau of Investigation (the precursor to the modern
FBI) to help bring down dangerous “Actives”, or magically empowered
individuals. Jake quickly realizes that the Bureau is in over its head –
in HARD MAGIC, Japan has been taken over by magic-using eugenic-minded
fascists, led by an ancient wizard who is determined to make humanity
stronger to face some unknown enemy…no matter how many people he has to
kill in the process.

Meanwhile, an unwanted girl named Faye, feared for her unusual
magical power of teleportation, grows up with her adoptive grandfather,
who also has the same power. One day when cars full of armed men show up
at her grandfather’s farm, Faye quickly realizes that Grandpa has a
secret…and a lot of people are willing to kill to get their hands on
that secret.

HARD MAGIC is chock-full of action, guns, adventure, and cool magical
powers. It’s also a fascinating piece of speculative fiction. How would
the use of magical powers shape human history? I especially liked the
quotes from historical figures at the start of each chapter, altered
slightly to contain the magical perspective. This also helps make the
villains particularly villainous – 20th century era eugenics were bad
enough, but magic-backed eugenics are even worse. (Also, there seems to
be an unwritten law of alternate history fiction that zeppelins must
make an appearance, and HARD MAGIC has zeppelins in spades.)

Definitely recommended, and I’ll be reading the sequel later this year.

Mailvox: comparative racisms

Myrddin compares my purported racism to N.K. Jemisin’s at the Mad Genius club:

[Vox]-style racism is far less direct. So
far, he’s pointed out that according to the Theory of Evolution (to
which he does not subscribe, but he never brings THAT up at the time
because he is a pro a-hole), different races are not equally
homo-sapiens (which does not mean that they aren’t equally validly human
or equally worthwhile, but he never brings THAT up at the time because
he enjoys being a pro a-hole). Other than that, his primary ‘racism’ is
the frequent claim that when wildly different cultures mix, the results
tend to be explosive.

Jemism’s style, on the other hand, seems to be “whites are
intrinsically racist because they are white.” To which my only response
can be “If you will judge evil regardless of my actions, what possible
motivation could I have to appease you?”

So… a bit of a stretch, yes, in that if he’s a racist, he has plausible deniability. She really doesn’t.

He is far from the only one to observe that Ms Jemisin is, and always has been, an unrepentant black racist who angrily blames all white people for a broad panoply of material evils for which they cannot reasonably be held responsible.  Will Shetterly has similarly observed that Jemisin is of the Critical Race Theory school; she is about as moderate as Elijah Poole. Jemisin’s cartoonish behavior was precisely why I nicknamed her McRacist in the first place and I suspect one could produce a pretty funny cartoon strip about the Superheroes of the SFWA featuring McRapey, McRacist, and McCreepy.

However, I have to correct Myrddin on two points. First, my statement concerning the way in which different races are not equally
homo sapiens sapiens has absolutely nothing to do with the theory of
evolution. Although one could reach that conclusion, as it logically follows from conventional evolutionary theory, my statement is nothing more than the citation of current scientific evidence, namely, DNA differences observed
in the various human population groups.

Second, I have repeatedly pointed out that the existence of different
human sub-species and/or races does not make those different
sub-species and/or races any less validly human. A dog is a dog whether
it is a Bichon Frise or a Great Dane. A man is a man whether he is Yoruba or Prussian. My basic argument on race and
civilization can be most accurately summarized as the observation that if you wish to
pull a sled, you would be well advised to select Siberian huskies rather than
chihuahuas or pit bulls.

The deniability is plausible due to the fact that I am denying the nonexistent.

Mailvox: What color? Amused

Dominic detects scientific falsification:

Last year, you made a post entitled Evolution and a potential rabbit
where you showed some in the scientific community had established that
DNA could last no longer than between 1.5 to 6.8 million years, even
under ideal conditions, where the linked article stated: “This confirms
the widely held suspicion that claims of DNA from dinosaurs and ancient
insects trapped in amber are incorrect”

Well, in 2009 Wired magazine posted a story of a man who extracted live bacteria and yeast samples from preserved Amber well
beyond the 1.5-6.8 million year threshold. The plot twist being that
his only successful attempt at capitalizing on the discovery was that a
particular strain of yeast made good beer. But that’s it, nothing else
he extracted was different enough from modern microorganisms to yield
anything new or of value, in spite of the supposed tens of millions of
years difference in time and environment.

I know its not cloning, per se, but
this does seem, at least superficially, to meet your criteria of either
debunking the evolutionary timeline as it currently stands, given a man
has made a career out of resurrecting live organisms that should have no
DNA left, or further discrediting the peer-review process which allowed
a paper claiming a 521 year DNA half-life to get published..

Color me amused.

That is two more strikes against Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. I think it would be overly aggressive to conclude that the evolutionary timeline has been comprehensively debunked, but this is, at the very least, yet another crack in the crumbling wall of the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow.

The financial idiocracy

Keep in mind that this woman is widely considered to be the most credible candidate to succeed Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve:

“For my own part,” Ms. Yellen said, “I did not see and did not
appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit ratings
agencies, the shadow banking system, the S.I.V.’s — I didn’t see any of
that coming until it happened.” Her startled interviewers noted that
almost none of the officials who testified had offered a similar
acknowledgment of an almost universal failure.

Meanwhile,
I was publicly warning about the dangerous risks facing the global
financial system from 2002 to the spring of 2008. And it wasn’t even my
job to pay attention to those things.  I see no chance, none, that these
maleducated academic idiots even posses the conceptual tools to
understand the current situation, let alone have the ability to do
anything about it.

It’s like watching monkeys try to
repair a space shuttle.  Which wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t all out
in space inside the shuttle.

I used to wonder why people like this would take an impossible job knowing that they would likely be considered responsible for the incipient disaster. Now I realize that it’s not that they’re not totally indifferent to their historical legacy, they’re just completely clueless about the situation facing them.

The organization formerly known as SFWA

Kate Paulk shares her thoughts on my recent, and historic, distinction:

His crime? I never really figured that out. It had something to do with
the SFWA twitter account, for which there were no official guidelines
until after whatever Mr Beale did, at least, not that I can find. As far as I can see, Mr Beale was doing nothing more horrible than
stating his opinions – not representing his opinions as those of any
other person or organization, not claiming to be anyone but himself, not
doing anything remotely unethical in other words.

Considering that a leading light of the industry can publicly grope a
female author at an awards banquet and not even get a mild, “that was
bad form” from the organization formerly known as SFWA, it’s clear that
the real reason for Mr Beale’s eviction was his outspoken personal
views.

Now I don’t particularly care what anyone’s personal beliefs are. I do
believe that an organization claiming to represent “Science Fiction and
Fantasy Writers” should have some kind of clause up front if they’re
going to limit membership to people with the “correct” beliefs. Now, if
they were the Communist Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America,
they’d have every reason to want Mr Beale out of their ranks, since he
is vehemently anti-communist. They’re not. Or at least, not openly.

SFWA may not be openly communist, but it is eminently clear that the F in SFWA now stands for Feminist. I didn’t see much hostility for capitalists in the organization, but it is readily apparent that if you are not a self-described feminist, of either sex, there is no place for you in the SFWA. The pinkshirts have already implemented various diktats concerning sexual harassment, SF conferences, and diversity, such as this one.


The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Statement on Diversity
 
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America strongly believes that a diverse membership is the key to a strong community. We define “diversity” as understanding and embracing the fact that our current and future members are composed of a broad range of individuals, who may vary in ethnicity, race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, physical disabilities, political or religious beliefs.

By including in our membership those of diverse backgrounds and experiences, we hope to provide an inclusive environment for our members, which is the foundation for civil discourse and the free exchange of ideas. Moreover, maximizing the diversity of our organization is important so that we can benefit from the talent and energy of all those who contribute to excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing.
 
Recognizing that historical and present day inequities must be addressed, we understand the need to promote diversity within the Board, staff, members, programs, and written policies of our organization. We must embody the change we advocate for others in the publishing industry. By seeking greater diversity and inclusion, we can serve as a model of the fairness and equality of opportunity we envision for our members.

We value the perspectives and contributions of all of our members. We welcome and support anyone who comes to us in good faith and with the desire to promote the SFWA, science fiction and fantasy writing, and the genre community as a whole.

This Very Important Statement was penned on the organization’s behalf by one Carrie Cuin, a fat little feminist who hasn’t even published enough fiction to qualify as a full member.  Many, if not most, of the outspoken feminists who have appointed themselves the organization’s stormtroopers haven’t published a single novel; the nobodies on the SFWA Board look like respected elders of the field by comparison.

And forget science fiction, the self-appointed experts on Stormfront and its associates have even gotten into the business of determining who is, and who is not, Hispanic. Despite my great-grandfather being a Mexican revolutionary and close associate of Pancho Villa’s, and despite my great-uncle being a well-known Hispanic painter, due to my failure to be publicly “Latino-identified” and my “discriminatory statements against Latinos”, Ms Cuin informed me that she “was afraid that you wouldn’t fall under that category” and therefore could not be included on a list of Hispanic SF writers.

Of course I’m not “Latino-identified”. I’m not Latino. And I don’t think I’ve made any statements about Latinos at all. The inability of a white woman from Ithaca to recognize the difference between Hispanics and Latinos is merely the icing on the irony cake.  No doubt they all look the same to her, and besides, they all speak Spanish anyhow, right?

The SFWA’s position on who is and who is not Hispanic reminded me of a statement by one of my feminist university professors, who once quite seriously declared that Margaret Thatcher “was not of the gender woman”. SFWA is so committed to diversity and inclusiveness that it excluded one of its few genuine writers of color… for no particular reason at all.

¡Viva la Revolución!

A failure of gun control

The attempt to emotionally bludgeon Americans into supporting gun
control on the purported bodies of little kids has not only failed, but backfired entirely:

Police said the
Connecticut town — where 26 students and six staffers were killed at
Sandy Hook Elementary School during gunman Adam Lanza’s massacre — has
already had 211 permit requests this year, a number far above the 171
requested in 2012 and the 99 in 2011.

There has been a
run on guns in the Connecticut town where a madman armed with a
Bushmaster assault rifle turned a grade school into a slaughterhouse.

Requests
for gun permits are on track to double this year over last year in
heartbroken Newtown, where 20 first-graders and six staffers were
massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Dec. 14, police said.

How deliciously ironic indeed. It
should be eminently clear that absolutely nothing is going to convince
Americans to disarm, not at a time where violent feral vibrants roam city streets in packs, Hispanic gangs are ethnically cleansing
entire cities one neighborhood at a time, the police are militarized, and agents from the
Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service are armed
better than the average third-world army.

Granted, the average American has given his government a plethora of reasons to believe he is stupid, but Americans are not completely devoid of an instinct for self-preservation.