Lecture Notes: June '04

Lecture Notes: 06-30-04 Upper Class Warfare

Here today we are given a perfect example of the shallowness that is Bill O’Reilly.

In defending his previous position that the income tax is ‘Marxism,’ he has just now, again, presented his views on income taxes. That he should so misrepresent the issues involved proves that this is not just an instance of his propaganda, but clearly shows that at the most fundamental level he does not understand what he is talking about.

In his 38 minutes of programming (without ads) he superficially jumped from one area to another shouting and ranting almost incoherently. Let us examine a few examples:

1 What do we “owe” anyone?

2 That levels of taxation can be understood at only the most superficial (literal) level without regard for the underlying economics.

3 That taxes should be based on income, not wealth.

4 That he has never benefited from the state.

1 What do we “owe” anyone?

Throughout the hour he repeatedly jumped around this question making no effort to establish any method of analysis. This is typical of “professional broadcasters.” They are just entertainers; jumping around the issue is a positive advantage in their business as it allows listeners who have just tuned in for a minute to be entertained; they have not missed anything. And if they tune out they also will not miss anything. The entire broadcast is a series of “moments” none leading towards any other. 55 seconds of “outrage” followed by another disconnected, unreasoning, “outrage.” How entertaining.

“A heroin addict who will not work. . .?” this is typical of his method of argumentation. The whole of our social problems is because, the tremendous governmental budget results from, lazy heroin addicts? (This reminds me of Rush Limbaugh, the king of talk radio. I occasionally tune in to find out the score. The last time I checked the score was Rush Limbaugh 28.5 billion straw men zero.) Or for example, “an alcoholic . . . who has a ‘disease’? We are supposed to call it a ‘disease’.” What is his point? Is he suggesting that alcoholism is not a disease? No, he is not making a point. These are just words strung together for a passing audience. He is a carnival barker: “Look, Look, step right up look at this!”

Take an emotional I. Q. test: In order to qualify for government assistance, it is enough that we require of some people, only that they sit up in bed when they are being fed? True or false? Of some people it is enough that they dress and make their own bed? True or false?

What if they are on their death bed? Obviously our expectations are contingent on the circumstances. But the circumstances are just what Bill O’Reilly wishes to avoid. Broadcasting requires a “fast paced presentation;” a full thought, a line of reasoning would take too much time. Then too the broadcaster would have to commit to a point of view. This is why they cultivate the myth of “objectivity.” Bill O’Reilly claims to be an “independent.” What in fact they want to do is maintain the right to contradict themselves in the next broadcast, or even in the next segment of the same broadcast. The government is not doing enough, then after the commercial break, the government is doing too much.

“Do we owe people a house?” The straw man, O’Reilly has talking straw men on his show, says, “A house . . . no . . .” Consider all the ways government is used to block the construction of housing. A recent Harvard study showed that New York, Boston, and San Francisco had so distorted the economy with their zoning regulations, that they had created a housing crisis by government action alone. Ever heard an hour, or even just one rant by O’Reilly against any of these actions of government? Not one; never. If capitalists want to build, for example, 300 square foot condos, and workers want to buy them why would we stop them? Bill O’Reilly, the entire elite, do not care. This issue does not affect them so it never comes up. They are blind.

But a thoughtful examination of this question would draw in a much larger area of public policy and economics for examination. For these zoning and building ordinances are merely one example of a much larger area. But first this message from our sponsors:

2 That levels of taxation can be understood at only the most superficial (literal) level without regard for the underlying economics.

Senator Moynihan used to try to demonstrate this nexus of public policy and economics with the following example:

He would ask someone, for example, the head of a New York teaching hospital that was appearing before the Senate to get public funds. (A “hand out” in O’Reilly’s lexicon.)

Senator Moynihan: Sir, how long does it take you to conduct your student doctors through the wards on your morning rounds?

Answer: Ah, well it has been some time since . . . ah, well, let’s see, we would generally start at 9 am and we would finish up around noon, about three hours.

Senator Moynihan: Three hours. Thank you. Now tell us how long did it take your predecessor, in say, for example, 1892, a hundred years ago, to conduct his morning rounds with his medical students?

Answer: What? 1892? (The witness smiles, clearly lost.) I don’t know? (What can medicine of a hundred years ago have to do with anything. Come on, get with it these are modern times.)

Senator Moynihan: Well, Sir, it took them about three hours. They also would start after breakfast and finish before lunch.

The Senator’s point was just this: every thing in the economy is changing, but not at an absolute, objective, rate. The calendar pages are being turned back for us all, but time affects us all differently. This is Ludwig von Mises’ point about the fallacy of the evenly rotating economy. The reason the market economy works so well is because all of these changes are being taken into account throughout the total system. Not that, as is often claimed by the simple minded conservatives, that the market perfectly perceives these changes. It does not. It is merely the distillation of those imperfect perceptions of the market participants.

Medicine has modernized in the last hundred years. And as we have repeatedly pointed out the advent of Regenerative Medicine, (where we treat the underlying condition, genetically, not just the symptoms as with current medical practice), will revolutionize medicine. Medicine will thus pull away from all other human activities. Regenerative Medicine is more “efficient” and this efficiency will change, (transform), the economy. Great wealth will be transferred to Regenerative Medicine, Recombinant Genetics. In turn other areas of the economy, first those that support this area, then latter those areas of human action that will be benefited by these areas, will surge ahead of other sectors of the economy.

It is a dynamic process, where the relationships of the various sectors of the economy, of human action, are constantly changing, intermediated by the market. Ludwig von Mises’ point, Senator Moynihan’s point, is the same: the rate of change varies from area to area in the economy over time.

For now, and the last hundred years, the sector of the economy we euphemistically call medicine has not experienced the same advances in efficiency as other areas. (I say euphemistically because so much of policy discussion is not technically about medicine, the art and science, but is rather a discussion about income redistribution. (“See,” says Bill O’Reilly, “This one isn’t even bothering to get up for his morning meal. Let him starve.”))

Air planes during this same period have gone from single seaters to planes with hundreds of passengers. See? That is efficiency. Computers? Huge efficiency from mechanical office machines to what you are reading this on. Steel factories. Construction. Manufacturing of all kinds. Sector after sector has experienced huge increases in efficiency and, this is the point we are trying to make, differential changes in efficiency.

See all the words we have gone through to make this point? All these paragraphs? All of this is communicated by the market with just one set of numbers; much more efficient way of communicating. Let’s save the conversation and get down to the money: the bottom line.

That is why Senator Moynihan’s witness was in Washington. To get the money. Because his teaching hospital is not able to keep up with the rest of the sectors of the economy, he needs money. All the service sectors of the economy try to migrate to the state because in general they are less efficient; i. e. less able to keep up with the advances in the rest of the economy created by the application of technology. Education for example still has a teacher in the classroom with 40 students. Shakespeare said that was the ratio in his time: 1 to 40. In California the voters actually voted to decrease that level of efficiency to 1 to 20! California also joined with the other Western States and founded the Western Governors University with distance based, internet, courses. Huge increase in efficiency. However, the professors of California, got the state to withdraw from the University because they feared it would reduce employment of university professors.

Inefficient sectors of the economy seek the protection of the state from the market. In medicine, automated diagnostic, and sensing, equipment have improved quality of care, and efficiency, but not at a rate to allow it to keep up with the rest of the economy. This fact of life is called in economics: inflation. That is, the prices rise in the less efficient sectors relative to the more efficient.

Because doctors still take three hours to make their rounds, meeting with each patient, review it with their students, the doctor’s costs relative to the rest of the economy is rising. (Now as soon as Regenerative Medicine comes in to play, June 6, 2006, this process will reverse. Medical costs to “treat”, no cure, diseases will plummet.) But for now their prices rise and they seek government support. This method of analysis applies all through economics, in every aspect including taxes.

For example, conservatives often claim, rightly, that corporate taxes are “passed along” to the consumers. This is mostly true. Conservatives mean to say that the owners, shareholders, do not pay the corporate tax, as the tax demigods claim, but rather it ends up being charged to the consumers in the form of higher prices. The simple minded are not quite right, because it can be seen that these taxes do cost shareholders something, in the form of lower efficiency of capital. Since as the price rises sales fall and the same amount of capital produces a smaller product. Labor also suffers for similar reasons. As total output declines less labor is needed.

Yet, with these qualifications it is true that in general the corporations act as tax collectors, collecting the tax from their customers and giving it to the government. However, we must be so impertinent to ask, why do conservatives never apply there reasoning further in examining taxes? Income taxes it seems are never “passed on.” Why is that?

Clearly if Mr. O’Reilly is made to pay $50,000 more per annum to the taxman he will demand more than $50,000 from Fox. Can you doubt he will get it? If he has locked himself into a contract that does not allow for such increases there may be a temporary shortfall however we can expect that the contract renewal will be further increased, and or, we can expect more free advertising taken out of the broadcasts, for which he pays no tax at all. And so too for everyone else in the economy. For the intervention in the economy by the taxman is simply another factor in the calculations that make up the market.

Just like the corporations in the earlier example Mr. O’Reilly acts as a collector of the taxes. (Which is how the word ‘capitalist’ originated. The capitalist originally was the one who bid on the taxes to be collected from the provinces of Rome. Pilot was a representative of a syndicate that had bid on the taxes to be collected in Israel. The capitalist would first pay the winning bid amount to the Senate, in Rome, and then go to the province to collect the taxes.) Mr. O’Reilly collects from the stream of commerce a certain sum, some of which is paid in income, some in stock, some in deferred income, some in free on air advertising on which no tax is paid. True a portion of this total income is in turn paid to the taxman, however, he can raise his price.

The doctor also can raise his prices, fees. Engineers, scientists, lawyers, plumbers, carpenters, etc. all can charge more in response to the imposition of higher taxes. So who ends up actually parting with money to pay the taxman? Sub minimum wage earners mainly.

And anyone else who is caught in the net of the economy. Just as the corporate tax reduced the efficiency of capital and reduced the demand for labor these factors exist in the income tax, for example, Mr. O’Reilly may be under contract that does not allow tax offsets. And so with everyone else, varying from sector to sector, situation to situation, the tax falls on all but some are able to respond with higher prices and some are not. In general the elite can raise prices in response to higher taxes, and the other 75% get stuck, to greater or lesser degrees.

Of this inequality in the fall of taxation on the people, Ludwig von Mises points out that this is another reason to avoid the imposition of the state on the economy. Inequalities are of two types. Those inequalities imposed by Nature and those imposed by the state. Because medicine has not kept pace with the improvements in the rest of the economy the poor sick have suffered most. To the extent this inequality of suffering is imposed by Nature it is unavoidable and beyond our moral judgment. For example, we do not know how to cure diabetes, only treat its symptoms. (This is soon to change with stem cells.) In this case the cost of treatment rises relative to the other sectors of the economy due to our ignorance of Nature. Or, for example, the relative difference in the price of firewood, coal, and nuclear power are in large measure determined by Nature.

To the extent that rises in the relative cost of medicine is due to the imposition of the state we can not, (legally), avoid it directly. For example, only some are allowed by the state to enter the market of health care under penalty of law. All of the government regulations of medicine add to the cost of medicine relative to other sectors of the economy, adding to its inflationary movement. Both the state and Nature act independently of market considerations. The consumer, working in response to the entrepreneurs and capitalists offerings is able to adapt and overcome the inequalities imposed by Nature. In a free market the consumer is able to alter his behavior by, for example, adopting a new product or a new service, a new way of achieving his objective, in response to the changed situation. For example the consumer can shift from firewood to coal as the former becomes scarce and therefore expensive.

Similarly, when taxes are imposed on one area of the economy the consumers can try to shift to another area of the economy where the tax can be avoided. (The mansard roof was in response to a French tax on floors defined as those not under the “roof.” So the mansard roof hides a floor from the taxman’s reign. It was not designed to shed Nature’s rain.) Therefore, seen now from the other side of the income tax transaction reviewed earlier, those providers of the goods and services for which the consumers can substitute a lower taxed alternative, will be less able to pass on their taxes. (Possibly Fox will refuse O’Reilly’s demand for increased payments, hiring me in his stead? (Not likely.) Thus O’Reilly would then have to pay his taxes, unless he can find another firm to meet his new higher price.)

The unfairness, the inequality, of the taxes, if they arise and force themselves upon us, and surely they must as we do not all have the O’Reilly option of raising our prices, fall “unfairly” on us not because they are imposed by Nature but by the state. They fall arbitrarily in the economy the same way that Nature’s impositions are arbitrary but we have, at least in principle, control over the state. The state, says Ludwig von Mises, because it is a creation of man, is properly subjected to our moral scrutiny, and here we should try to reduce its inequalities by reducing the state’s involvement in the economy. Our reliance on the state should be reduced whenever possible precisely because, he says, of this inherent, unavoidably, unequal and arbitrary quality of its impact.

Why must it needs be so? Because the economy is merely a reflection of society which is inherently, unavoidably, unequal and arbitrary. Why? Because people are unequal. Why? Genetics. Why is it fair that O’Reilly can pass on the income tax and you and I can not? Thus has it ever been. Ludwig von Mises points out that if the baker and the tailor go to war the baker is in the advantaged position. You can go without clothes longer than you can go without bread. In life, and the economy, some have natural advantages. We can only look to avoid adding to those woes when we impose state power.

Notice that in Bill O’Reilly’s discussion no where is it mentioned that the elite are better able to avoid paying income taxes than is his audience. He shouts about his having to pay taxes as if that were the most important aspect of the question. The unfairness that the taxes create in there operation, where the lower orders are stuck with a tax bill which they are unable to shift as easily as the elite never once enters the discussion. This is no accident. It is not just that Mr. O’Reilly is not a profound thinker, shallow, or even that he is vain and selfish and self-centered, egomaniacal, nor is it just that he wishes to keep secret the true aspects of how taxes fall in our economy, the better he and his fellows in the elite can continue to control and dominate us, all of which is true, but finally, he does not cover these issues because he is in broadcasting. His mass audience needs to be ready for the next commercial, not bothered by a lot of ideas.

To be in broadcasting is to be shallow. Value neutrality was invented for the mass media. It is this aspect of the mass media that facilitated the rise of fascism in the last century and may again in this century.

3 That taxes should be based on income, not wealth.

Because O’Reilly is a Harvard graduate we assume he has read Ludwig von Mises. Therefore we conclude that his failure to show any knowledge of these issues is a deliberate attempt of obfuscate and conceal the truth from the American people, least ways that part that tunes into his show for 15 minutes or so during the week .

A tax based on wealth would essentially fall on the economy as we have just seen with the income tax. However, there is a small, upwardly mobile portion of the population that though it has large incomes has little wealth. These are exactly the people a progressive public policy should try to help. To the extent possible taxes should be shifted from income to wealth. An additional advantage is that this shift would put pressure on capital to be invested in the economy efficiently, in as much as the tax will be due whether or not the capital has been put to its highest and best use.

However, this issue will never be mentioned by O’Reilly because his preference is to talk about O’Reilly, and O’Reilly’s income, and O’Reilly’s tax. (Have you noticed that he even started talking about O’raq. Not Iraq, but O’raq. Get it? Pure egotism.)

4 That he has never benefited from the state.

This is the most constant of his many lies. Those who perished at Valley Forge, Iwo Jima, Normandy, all of that sacrifice, or even those who are falling in Iraq even as you read this, none of it, has ever benefited Bill O’Reilly.

Public Schools? Never went to ‘em. But he enjoys living in a society with fellow citizens who have had access to a public education. Would Fox even exist if not for all that has been done, by so many, so selflessly?

Here we reach the end of Ludwig von Mises’ Catalytic Science: Economics. His postulates do not include selfless acts. His is a study of gainful employment, human action, of a certain, narrowly defined kind. This is a limitation of the science, which is why it is said to be a tautology. It is not concerned with understanding all of human action only economics, as defined.

Yet this society, which has made so much possible, exists not because of the free market. The free market exists, largely, because of this society. Our state, our Union, allows the free market. When the editors of the Wall Street Journal advocate unlimited immigration into the United States, they do so one suspects because they are certain that it will not be allowed. It is true that if a billion people were allowed to immigrate into the United States the normal market forces would create an equilibrium. Mothers in Calcutta would chide their children into eating there meals by reminding them that children in Chicago go hungry every night.

The Wall Street Journal editors, like O’Reilly, live in a world of privilege, remote from the conditions they discuss so glibly. Perhaps if those editors and O’Reilly get their way they will be among the first the mob hangs. If so, we can agree with Moynihan’s remark on a similar case to the effect that, “it will be very richly deserved.”

(see paper no. 1948. Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability
http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2002papers/2002list.html

Lecture Notes: 06-28-04

Exhortation to the deed. That is what the turn of the century radicals called it. President McKinley’s assassination, that was one of their deeds. Who exhorted? Marx first, then all the rest; an entire ecological system of philosophers, academics, journalists.

The purpose of the propaganda is to get someone to act. Act! Strike the blow.

When Senator Kennedy accused President Bush of concocting the Second Gulf War, “in Texas;” accused him of lying to the American people to start the war, he was exhorting the deed. If he is believed, if the war was simply the result of a lie, then certain moral judgments follow. And from those judgments certain acts follow. Is he believed?

The New York Times now admits that they misrepresented the 911 Commission’s recent staff report. They claimed “no connection” because they thought they could get away with it. Mr. Gore says one outlandish thing after another because he too thinks that he will be accepted. They are testing the limits. Each success acts as an exhortation to further extreme acts. This appears similar to what we call thinking, but note they are only “trying out” these ideas. They judge these ideas by your reaction, they are not really thinking.

I was not surprised that Mr. Bush (41) gave Senator Kennedy an award for “civic” service the week after the Senator’s accusation against his son. For Republicans words do not mean anything. They are not exhorting anyone to do anything. This obtuseness is not new. Recall Lenin’s remark that the rulers would sell him the rope with which he would hang them. Republicans just do not take it seriously.

This is why Republicans make such poor candidates. They implicitly accept that the world of ideas, debate, speechifying, has some relation to elective office, but just what, precisely, that connection might be, seems to elude them. An animal trainer once remarked that you can train wolves to play fetch, they will trot over and retrieve the object, but, unlike dogs, there is no enthusiasm, they do not understand the point of it all.

On the left things are quite different. Senator Kennedy exhorts us to regard the President as a liar. In his turn, Senator Kennedy is himself the object of other’s exhortations. Each in turn trying to out do the others. Not just Washington, but in Hollywood, the newspapers and network news departments, and at the universities, the game is: how left can you go? A corrupt vile elite, constantly exhorting itself to ever more extreme conduct.

And so we stand alone.

Proposition 209 was not a creation of the Republican Party. Two college professors, (Hayward State), having watched for years as one administrative position, one teaching position, one scholarship, after another was awarded based on the race of the applicants, finally, on there own, decided to do something. The great achievement of 109 is not, as most believe, that it stopped racial discrimination in state contracting and employment, rather it only stopped the left from openly talking about their discriminatory practices. They can no longer exhort one another to the deed. Get Whitey.

Stopping the ‘exhortation of the deed’ will not sound like much of an achievement to you, if you are a Republican, but some of us think it a triumph. However, my point is that if not for those two college professors at Hayward State, racial discrimination would be continuing to this day. It is called leadership.

On the left there is one more extreme statement after another. On the right? Silence.

Mr. Jones is running for the Senate in California. Hear that? See? Nothing.

He could run against the San Francisco Bay Area. He could make the whole Bay Area his opponent. (He is not likely to lose any votes here.) California currently does not have any United States Senators. 35 million people and not one Senator. Marin County has two Senators but California has none.

The Bay Area is losing jobs, is this what California wants? The Bay Area uses government to block new construction, is this what California wants? The average priced home requires an annual income $60,000 over what the average family earns in the Bay Area, is this what California wants? Marin County is growing older, and the population is falling, even as the government restrictions on home construction are increasing, and the employers are leaving too; this is what the Senators from Marin are doing to California.

No, Mr. Jones, is not exhorting us. In fact one wonders if the Republicans are not in league with the Democrats. Is the game fixed?

Or is it just that Republicans do not believe in anything? One millionaire after another runs for office on a platform of memememe. Why the Republican Party? Because it is convenient?

The Republican millionaire of the hour is Arnold Schwarzenegger. He ran for office in opposition to giving drivers licenses to illegals. Now the Sacramento power elite is preparing to do just that. President Bush himself recently proposed allowing anyone to bring in any immigrant to fill any job, in a proposal so poorly considered that it was immediately

abandoned by the White House. Who said that? We never heard about it. Someone heard him: illegal border crossings are up 30%.

Republicans tie themselves into these knots because they absolutely refuse to think. Leadership anyone? Why not say that the problem with illegals is that they are illegal? Why not legalize them?

Answer: because the American people want to control immigration.

Then in that case let us go to the American people and say that though we agree that we should control immigration we propose an exception:

Mexico is our neighbor and friend and they have a problem. Their population is going to double in the next 50 years. (40% of the population is under age 15.) That means they will have to build twice as many schools, hospitals, highways, etc. Twice as many of everything just to stay in place. Not to improve their standard of living but just to tread water.

The United States can help by increasing the number of immigrants over this period from Mexico. If we took in 50 million people, (only one million a year), this would mean that we would have to increase our highways, houses, schools, only 15%. Little Mexico would have to increase 50% to make room for the 50 million who stay home, but because we are so much bigger we would only need to increase by 15%. Now 50% is still a lot for little Mexico but that is much more doable than trying to double everything.

And as a matter of fact we would not have to build 15% of everything. For example we all ready have enough space in our schools, because our birth rate has declined. (To some extent all of these questions are moot due to developments taking place in Recombinant Genetics but that is another story.)

Now all of this has a name. It is similar to exhortation to the deed. It is, however, called leadership. “Exhortation to the deed” is part of a “dialectic process.” In a dialectic no one individual statement matters because the “truth” will emerge from the whole process and can not be contained in any one individual statement. So the left games the system by making the most extreme statement possible, i. e. that can possibly be accepted, by the gullible public.

We are both making statements about political circumstances, but our method is different. We consider questions, arrive at and publicly state our views, honestly. We are not part of a dialectic process. Mr. Jones, Mr. Schwarzenegger, lead!

This is why Ronald Reagan was so successful. He forced his opponents onto the horns of a dilemma simply by applying logic to the question. He forced them to choose. The problem with illegals is that they are illegal. Solution: make them legal. And force our opponents to choose. Either mass deportation, or make them legal. Do you see the logic?

Make them choose. One way or the other, but do something. Got it? Make mass education programs for the new immigrants, civics, history, language, and increased border controls in the future, part of the plan.

This is not just exhortation to the deed. There is a real thought here. A solution. Best of all no more “illegals.” Now everyone a citizen! Now go and lead.

Mr. Jones, do something.

06-26-04

Welcome to our new visitors from Blogspot.com. Welcome. Welcome.

Counselor: He still doesn’t get many visitors.

Yvonne, . . . my dear, tea for our visitors.

Counselor: This is the . . . internet ? . . . we, tea . . . its not possible. . .

Oh, yes, of course, well welcome all of you . . . our little college . . . we are honored by your visits. Here on the main campus are our general lectures. At the Max Weber Institute we study the fifth day of creation. Recombinant Genetics, it will change everything. Public policy discussions of Medicare, Social Security, the Baby Boomers retiring, you know, the deficits, everything will be affected. What will it be like to live in a world with 6 billion people who never age? Think about------

Counselor: They are only visiting, they have not signed up for the full course, . . . just visiting . . .

Ah, yes of course, sorry, just visiting, you know we have recently been studying Chlamydia Trachomatis; everyone assumes that the release of pathogens will inevitably lead to doomsday, but they overlook the possibility that-------

Counselor: And the Moynihan . . .

Yes, thank you dear, the Moynihan Library is open to our internet visitors as well. Please do stop by. Of special interest is the Artificial Clouds Archives. Our Russian friends have shown an interest recently. The problem with the Kyoto Protocols is that they overlook China and India, the entire developing world. Does anyone really think that China, with its vast coal reserves, will stop -----

Counselor: I’m sure they will enjoy the whole Moynihan collection.

Yes. Yes, to enjoy yourselves. Welcome. Welcome.

Counselor: Now let them go.

Yes, yes, welcome.

Lecture Notes: 06-26-04

Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, David Gold all have made comment recently about the “liberal Bay Area.” Partly these comments are simply promotion of their radio programs. But mainly they, like so many, actually believe that the San Francisco Bay Area is “liberal.”

They are mistaken.

Possibly post liberal might do. For example, the homeless on the streets of Berkeley and San Francisco are often mentioned as evidence of the Bay Area’s liberalism: ‘See how tolerant they are here.’

Tolerant? Why not ask, ‘If they are so tolerant why are these homeless on the streets?’

Where are the worker dormitories? Where are the apartments and condos; houses? Liberal California emptied the mental hospitals with the false claim that ‘community based sanctuaries’ would be built. Liars! And some of us pointed this out at the time. The same communities that sent these people to the mental hospitals are now going to provide sanctuaries? All lies.

But please do not tell me that they are liberal.

The homeless are on the streets not because of liberal Bay Area tolerance but because tourists from Lake Woebegone, from Anytown USA, give out their tourist dollars. San Francisco’s Tourist Board has put up signs, ‘Please do not feed the animals,’ but they do, it makes the tourist feel so ‘good.’ Good karma man.

The County of San Francisco has down zoned five times in the last thirty years. Senator Feinstein, first as Supervisor then as Mayor, reduced density and lowered the building height limit, even as she privately bought every multi story building for which she could arrange financing. In response to her abuse of government power, the state passed a law in Sacramento to prevent public officials from voting on zoning issues when they are also owners of property in their jurisdiction; her conduct was that notorious.

No, these homeless are begging on the streets of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, not because the Bay Area is so liberal but because it is so illiberal.

The rich of Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco can be seen any day of the week picking up little brown men off the streets to mow their lawns, pave their driveways, remodel their homes, and they can be seen dumping them back on the streets any evening. (Senator Boxer did this.) They use them for a day or a week and then dump them back to us.

Worker dormitories? What will you be asking for next? Schools? Hospitals? Next thing you know you will want homes.

The illegals are illegal just because the rich of the Bay Area do not want the liability. They do not want to be responsible for any bills, any obligations. No, please, no schools. No homes. No families.

This is why they want their housekeepers and nannies from Guatemala and Costa Rica. For a much lower price they can get a kind, warm, decent woman to look after their child and home. For the same price the American woman would be a drug addict with an I. Q. of 70 that has been raised on American TV and movies. A nightmare not a nanny. They have so corrupted their own culture they have to import their nannies and house keepers.

Liberal? Wake up. What you are seeing here in California will be coming to your town tomorrow.

Of course it does not make any sense to bring in immigrants while at the same time you restrict the construction of housing and drive away businesses; of course not: unless you are corrupt.

It makes no sense to allow your schools to deteriorate, to fall from the best in the nation only twenty years ago, to among the worst today, just at a time when you are bringing in hundreds of thousands of new residents.

The post liberal Bay Area knows that they have created a corrupt culture. They have driven the average priced home up out of the reach of the average wage earner. Only a small percentage of the residents can afford the home in which they now live. Industry has been driven out of the state.

The local Bay Area companies are getting out. Bechtel is gone. Levi has self destructed: their San Francisco image of the drug addict as fashion model, the wasted look, did not sell in Anytown USA. The Gap, (from Tibetan theology don’t you know), had a similar problem, it also experienced a sudden down turn in sales trying to sell the heroin addict look.

Genentec recently completed a study which proved that its location in the Bay Area is putting it at a competitive disadvantage with its competitors. It must pay a hundred thousand more dollars per scientist to overcome reluctance to move into the Bay Area. The computer tech companies of the South Bay have the same problem and are leaving.

This is why the illiberal Bay Area needs its illegals --- they at least can not vote; they have fewer choices. If the illegal aliens could vote they would repeal the housing bans the liberal Democrats have established. They would encourage business.

This why the illiberal Bay Area replaces the American middle class with the illegals.

A corrupt, degenerate, upper class. Yes. But please do not call it the liberal Bay Area.

Lecture Notes: 06-21-04

Uh-oh. Mr. President, . . . I think . . . someone may have woken up Mr. Kerry. I warned you . . .

"We need a president who will once again embrace our tradition of looking toward the future and new discoveries with hope based on scientific facts, not fear," Kerry told hundreds who braved a cold rain to hear him speak at an outdoor amphitheater, even though he was an hour and a half late.

In a letter endorsing Kerry, 48 scientists who have won the Nobel Prize said the Bush administration is undermining the nation's future by impeding medical advances, turning away scientific talent with its immigration practices and ignoring scientific consensus on global warming and other critical issues.

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said the president's budget increases federal research and development to $132 billion in 2005, a 44 percent increase since taking office. ---Yahoo! News Monday, Jun 21, 2004 --- Drudge

$132 billion? That would be up from the $78 billion last reported at the Bureau of the Census? I mean boyo I have a Masters in Public Administration and the only consolidated numbers for Research and Development that I could find at the Bureau of the Census, from the 1997 Economic Census, (the 2002 Census is still not published), show 2002 numbers at $78 billion. They are missing $54 billion added in 2002, 2003, 2004?

Listen to me lad, Mr. Schmidt, is it? (Is it all about Schmidt?) If I can not find these numbers how do you expect the average bloke that does not have all of my advantages to find out what you bastards have been doing?

And do tell us Mr. Schmidt, when were you planning to let us all in on it? If Mr. Kerry had not made his speech would you still be keeping it a secret? They do not call yours the “secretive Administration” for nothing do they? Talk about playing the cards close to the chest. Do you know that there is an election this year?

And another thing Mr. Schmidt, (I’m feeling a little guilty that I may have put Mr. Kerry up to this thing, (thank God he hasn’t connected stem cell research to bio war preparedness, yet)), it is a 41% increase based on the current figure. But it is a 69% over, got that?, over the 2002 figure. $54 billion is 41% of the current $132 billion but it is an increase over the 2002 figure of 69%.

Why not put it out there like that? Why not 69%?

No. 782. Research and Development (R&D) Expenditures by Source and

Objective: 2002..

Total Federal Private University Non Profit

276,185 78,185 180,769 7,455 7,304

NAICS

code Kind of business 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Percent change

54169 Other scientific and technical

consulting services . . . . . . . 10,879 10,273 9,260 8,193 8,192 5.9 10.9 13.0 Z

5417 Scientific research and

development services . . . .63,006 57,434 51,428 45,739 41,695 9.7 11.7 12.4 9.7

54171 Research and development

in the physical,

engineering, and life

sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . 58,344 53,072 47,411 42,077 38,325 9.9 11.9 12.7 9.8

You see, . . . this is what is so discouraging. A lot of us would like to help but we get this stonewalling. Even when you have got a story to tell you get it wrong. Why is that? Mr. Schmidt?

And mind that you do not keep any secrets on Iraq. For example the genetic testing of Mr. Ramzi Yousef and KSM. If you have done the testing like Laurie Mylroie suggested and you are keeping it a secret, Mr. Kerry will turn it on you. Sure he will.

You are not keeping it a secret from Mr. Yousef and KSM. Don’t you think they know if they are related? If you are keeping it a secret in the hope you can spring it just before the election. Well, God help you if you are playing tricks with us that’s all I can say.

Tell the man, ‘No more secrets.’

Claiming the ban on stem cells is God’s will is another example . . . of how you are discouraging . . . Claiming it is God’s will does not excuse you from putting your thoughts into words. If you can not explain why old cells are moral and new cells lines are not then you can not just shrug your shoulders and claim its God’s will. That is no explanation.

Got that? No go tell the man.

p.s. There are other ways of dealing with global warming besides Koyto. See Artificial Clouds at the Moynihan.

Lecture Notes: 06-20-04

Feckless Nation

The market is always wrong. If the market was right, if there was perfect knowledge of and understanding of the current situation and how this relates to the future conditions, then there would never be any opportunity to beat the market.

All prices would be perfectly set at just their “real” values, for current conditions, and for all future conditions. You would never be able to buy low and sell high as all prices would be perfectly set and move in unison.

Ludwig von Mises calls this the fallacy of the perfectly rotating economy. His point was that the real economy has wild swings because there is no perfect information to guide the market. Human affairs are a confused roil just because we do not, can not, know, and our markets reflect our existential condition.

There is only one reality which will prevail and therefore the many estimates that make up the market will be proven wrong eventually. Possibly all of them will be proven wrong. This accounts for the often noticed “random walk.” Why not random selection for who can see the future? This also accounts for the often remarked fall of great fortunes over time. Such is the human condition. Nothing lasts.

We can do none other. We make our estimate. Place our bets.

Yet some things seem so certain, their importance appears so obvious, that the need for exploration cries out to us.

Columbus to the New World. Louis and Clark across the continent. And the human genome and its proteins would seem to be another.

Or do you think there will come a time when you will not want to understand human biology? Certainly Ludwig von Mises would approve of our private bio tech companies. Would have approved of the awarding of patents to protect the investor’s investments.

Nor would he have, as many conservatives might think, have objected to government investment in this research.

In his book, Human Action, he describes how WWII war industries should have been “regulated.” Not with coupons books and anti profiteering taxes and regulations but rather with prices. Many of these wartime regulations were still on the books when Jack Kennedy came to office. Kennedy’s proposals to reduce taxes was based on the recognition that the high wartime taxes with their administration of wartime tax shelters for war goods had twisted and distorted the economy. (Many of these regulations were still on the books when Reagan came into office.)

Ludwig von Mises’ proposal was based on a simple insight. Capitalist economies had better weapons not because, as Marx claimed, the capitalists needed the weapons to steal the wealth from the people of the world, but for the same reason capitalists have better toasters, and cars, and candy bars. Capitalists armies have better weapons because they have better everything.

The engine of the free market frees up human beings to do their best in satisfying the perceived needs of the consumers because over time only those that do survive.

And in war the same dynamic exists. It is not necessary to direct the war effort from the top down, the market will direct everything in war just as in peace.

You do not have to ration gas the market will ration it. You do not have to direct the hairstylist to leave off at the beauty parlor and go to work in the war industry the market will direct her. The market will direct everything, all the goods and services of the economy. How? This is what markets do.

Simply print money. Need tanks? The capitalist firms will furnish the best tanks possible. Let us have no talk about war profiteering. Let them charge the market rate. You can buy one of these tanks, or two of these, or for the same price you can have three of these. Planes, machine guns, telephones, ships, boots, all war material will be offered up by competing firms each making its own estimate of what is needed. The state, like any consumer, selects from the proffered goods and goes about its business.

Companies not engaged in war production will soon feel the pinch of inflation. Gas will rise in price, as will steel, cotton, rubber, all needed by war industries, will soon be priced out of the reach of the hairstylist, the green grocer, the lawn furniture manufacturer. All will have to redirect there attention to supporting the war industries as only the war industries will be receiving the steady stream of dollars from the government presses.

Of course Ludwig von Mises notes, in a passage I recall Moynihan reading on the floor of the Senate, this inflation will exhaust the economy. Eventually the inflation will destroy the economy, but presumably the war is being fought for survival. If the war is lost the economy will be destroyed in any case.

But his point is that there is no need for bureaucratic regulation. And when the war is done, the green grocer, the hair stylist, will return to their former jobs and the economy will recover, with the benefit that the regulations will not continue to distort it 15 or 35 years after the war’s end.

In this war you are not being asked to direct your resources into coastal defenses or tanks and planes. In this war you are being asked to direct a maximal effort into basic and applied research in areas that there is no doubt you will want to explore in any case. Even without the war you would want to know these things for medicine, for your health, for all that we will be able to do in the future.

But rather than waiting to climb the learning curve you need to climb it now.

It took the congress a year and a half to approve the Administrations Bio Shield program. $6 billion. Not $6 billion this year but over 10 years. You do not have 10 years.

I recon we need to invest $3 trillion in life sciences and related subjects. That would be $300 billion a year over the next 10 years.

Currently the total capitalization of all life sciences companies is $350 billion. They produce $34 billion in goods and services or about a third of one percent of the Gross Domestic Product according to the recent Commerce study.

Total investment in Life Sciences research is $12 billion a year. Total Research and Development in Physical Engineering and Life Sciences together was $35 billion according to the 1997 Economic Census.

To put that in perspective consider that total Research and Development investment in the whole economy is $277 billion a year (78 Federal 181 Private and 15 university and non profit, (according to the 1997 Census)).

This is by itself, even without consideration of our new urgent bio war needs, a vast scientific and technological enterprise. The Department of Energy labs are themselves a continuation of the Manhattan project and so in a sense we are already, have been these last several decades on a war footing. When we take into account the private laboratories and the other federal investments in R & D it can be seen that we are spending already a significant fraction of what I have estimated to be needed to prepare to defend the nation from a bio attack. Are we already spending ¾ or ½, or is only 1/3 of the nations R & D going to bio war related research?

In other words of the $277 billion total R & D investment in the U. S., how much goes to national preparedness against bio war? Without more study it is not possible to say. But every R & D proposal needs to be examined for its relation to the war. For example, money spent on building better computers may at first seem unrelated, until you reflect that they are needed for everything from analyzing the genome base pairs and modeling the proteins, to developing bio detectors and maintaining records for virtual quarantines.

But from any perspective it clearly can be seen that the $600 million a year contributed by Bio Shield is inadequate. Certainly it is inadequate by a factor of 10. For $6 billion a year, (not over 10 years!), would have increased Life Sciences R & D only 50% . There can be no doubt that the existing labs could have easily extended themselves, (especially after the cut backs made during the recent industry turndown), to handle the additional research.

In fact when I first heard that Congress had taken a year and a half to pass Bio Shield I assumed that the proposal was for $60 billion a year, not $6 billion over 10 years. With $35 billion currently going into Physical Engineering and Life Sciences a $60 billion increase would have not quite doubled this R & D sector, yet it would only be a 20% increase on total national R & D investments of $277 billion a year. That would have been a good start.

By any measure Bio Shield is inadequate at only $600 million a year. We are in a war of survival. This amounts to only a 5% increase in R & D for Life Sciences. But it is not all going to Life Science R & D is it? It will get used for bio hazard suits for firemen in South Dakota, etc.

But how could anyone familiar with the task confronting the country, how could anyone familiar with the need for knowledge of this subject, think that a 5% increase in basic Life Science’s R & D would be preparation for war? And again, you will want to know about the human genome, the human immune system, anyway. This isn’t a proposal for metal detectors at the mall or coastal defenses. No money spent on basic research is ever wasted. It will be repaid in medical cost saving alone 100 fold; and in addition you just might be able to save yourselves from a bio attack.

Clearly the order of magnitude is $60 billion a year not $6 billion over ten years. In peace time the nation spends $277 billion a year on R & D. Now we face a war of survival and an increase of two tenths of one percent is thought to prepare us for this war? Two tenths of one percent? And you are serious? A feckless nation.

Lecture Notes: 06-18-04

“Michael Savage is a bomb thrower . . . but here is the difference (from the left) . . . I have never heard Savage tell a lie.”

----- Bill O’Reilly 06-18-04

Just off the top of my head:

---Branson girls have sex with homeless people when they deliver food relief in San Francisco.

---Women at Naropa Institute have sex with hundreds of men as part of their training in Buddhism.

---All homeless are drug addicts and/or insane.

---George Soros the “Hungarian Jew,” “busted out” the Malaysian currency and this is why Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir made his anti Semitic mments about Jews in 2003.

---The liberals were responsible for the murder of a dozen Israeli children in a bombing in Jerusalem in 2003.

---Moslems are “subhuman.”

---WASP American conservatives have a “tendency” to become Nazis.

---Liberals are “traitors.”

Iris Murdoch’s point in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals was that the “sharp distinction between fact and value” is a mistake. O’Reilly’s distinction that the left tells lies (about facts) while the right only expresses opinions (values) is a mistake on just this point.

As we see in the public discussion over the “link” between Iraq and 911 and al-Qaeda is also an illustration. The dishonesty comes about, is made possible by, obscuring the value judgments of the commentators.

In American journalism the myth of objectivity arose as a marketing gimmick. In the Nineteenth Century the mass circulation newspapers replaced the partisan press which had more focused audiences. They were the first to use ‘we report you decide.’

It is a myth because no story can be told without resort to some system of values. (As Strunk & White say, you must first choose a verb and a noun.) The editors concealed their values because they wanted the flexibility to tell the news stories in any manner that they chose. Whatever way would allow them to sell the most newspapers.

This flexibility is what gives populism its bad name. Also this is what characterizes fascism. The willful switching, shiftlessness, from one popular position to another simply to gain favor with the mob is exactly what the Eighteenth Century Tories warned us against in their last ditch efforts to stop democracy. Hitler was the fulfillment of the nightmare they foresaw.

This technique does not make the fascist more successful in debate but only in mass communication. For in debate no one can doubt that Moynihan, for example, would have prevailed over Hitler. Moynihan, entangled in a web of values, would quickly have demonstrated that Hitler was an imposter and a fraud. Even though the fascist has apparently more flexibility in jumping from one contradictory position to another this very “flexibility” is achieved only by dishonesty.

The problem in Weimar Germany was not that the rules of debate were forgotten but that they did not matter under the relentless march of mass communication. The amplified speaker, the radio, the photo magazines, movies, then talkies, all had just been invented.

Then too Moynihan would have won the debate only if we surrounded him with young men with truncheons in the outer circle and automatic weapons at the ready. For contrary to the left delusions Hitler’s rise was due to the failure of the authoritarian state, not its consequence.

The left, Communists, as well as the Fascists abandoned the Weimar Republic. The difference between left and right in America can be illustrated by this difference. The left imagines itself in a heroic struggle against fascists, excusing its misconduct as justified blows against the right. Conservatives know that the fascist are best fought by attending P. T. A. meetings, voting, debating, all the small ways we maintain our democratic culture.

Ultimately no sharp distinction can be made between fact and value because our facts are created by our values.

Did Mr. Hussein have a “link” to al Quaeda?

We variously hear the mass media claim that there was “no link,” “no direct link,” “no personal knowledge,” more recently Woodward quoted Tenet as saying there was no “command and control,” and now the last few days we are back to “no link.” Full circle! Whichever way sells the most newspapers.

The failure to set out the system of thought that is being applied, what system of values, results not from the limitation of space and time, but first due to the market considerations of mass communications. Then too there is now the myth of “objectivity” which would have to be dispensed with. Finally there would be the limitation on the flexibility to handle future stories.

Mr. Rather ended one broadcast advising his audience to go an “read a newspaper” if they wanted to really know what was going on in the news he had just “reported.” Significantly he did not recommend that the audience visit CBS’s own website. Why? Because even though there are no time or space limitations on the internet, CBS does not want to make a commitment to a system of thought or values.

Mr. Jennings who has just announced that there was “no link” does not want to be bothered to explain ABC News’ own reporting about the connections between the first WTC bombing and Iraq. Mr. O’Reilly himself quoted the Wall Street Journal about the same story just a few months ago, as if it were breaking news, when in fact these connections have been known for years.

What would it mean to have “command and control” over Mr. Ramsey Yousef? He is a sadistic killer. I think of him waiving from the helicopter hovering outside the Manila office building where his “girl friend” worked. He called her on his cell phone. She jumps up, “No! You are where?” Eagerly looking out the windows, then suddenly the helicopter comes up to the floor of the building where she is standing. “Yeee,” she screams, as her co-workers, stand and gawk, “Yes, I see you. My God!”

“Who is that? Her rich Arab boy friend? Ask if he has a friend,” they giggle.

This is Ramsey the committed Moslem fundamentalist. To tell his story you must choose a scene, a noun, a verb, all of these choices will reflect your values, these will suggest a method of analysis. If Messrs. O’Reilly, Rather, Jennings, etc. were required to systematically apply this analysis throughout their coverage what would happen to mass circulation?

Like the fascist, another product of mass communication, they want to retain their flexibility. This is why they have not, will never, embrace the internet. To broadcast they can not admit to a system values.

(This also is why Michael Weiner is often described as a fascist. He changes his position every fifteen minutes. But this kaleidoscopic quality of his mind results from insanity.) This kaleidoscopic quality of the insane is why Buddhist monks often give sanctuary to the insane. For Buddhist recognize that what I have here been so cheerfully calling a system of values, is in fact arbitrary. Why do we have this system and not some other one?

And this is why lawyers dismiss philosophy as only a “slippery slope” as if that phrase added anything to the discussion. (It is used in their business to force gullible judges into deciding one way or the other rather than fashioning some compromise.)

Scientists are inclined to dismiss philosophy as only a morass of “opinion” as if that delineated anything. Again scientists typically making the mistake of a “sharp distinction between fact and value.” As we have seen, (see Wrong Part II), this does not help the scientist. They would do better to regard “value” as the experimental apparatus, or the initial condition of the experiment called life, the experimental result arising from these conditions or measurements being our “fact.” This is our science. Our values create the facts. The facts appear because they are observed. Dr. Heisenberg do you concur?)

It is often said that Clinton tried to treat the first WTC bombing as a criminal matter, and all subsequent terrorist actions too. I am sympathetic to this criticism. But to understand this criticism, one must first assert the right of the sovereign power. One must make a value judgment; which Clinton was unable, is unable, to do. One must make a value judgment that we have a right to exercise the sovereign’s right: first the sticks, then ultimately the double headed ax.

But even if one limits oneself to the rules of court it can be seen that a value judgment is still also made. Again, there is no objectivity. Life forces value judgments. (Alan Watts would prefer we say that value judgments naturally arise.)

The “felony murder rule”, for example, is a rule of court that is but one example of the rule of “conspiracy.” Typically in a criminal case the “wheel man” complains that he was only driving the get-a-way car, “I didn’t know they’as going to shoot no one,” there by indicating that it is his opinion that his colleagues exceeded the terms and scope of “the agreement” when they shot the bank guard and the senior teller and the customer who was standing behind the bank guard.

But this “law” is not an objective fact, as sadly so many conservative simpletons assume, it is a value. You must first agree to the value implicit in the rule that “a conspiracy is completed upon the agreement” as the lawyers say. It is this system of values that allows us to put the wheel man away for life even though he did not kill anyone, nor have any “personal knowledge”, nor “exercise command and control,” nor “collaboration,” nor planning, nor direct link or control, or any of the multitude of other verbiage one might care to fill our systems of mass communication with for the next several years about why he should not be held liable for the deaths.

Conservatives please note that this problem of values does not stop here with the newspapers, but continues in our schools, and every other place we might look.

It is a strange result that even if we limit ourselves to the values structured in our criminal law courts we could convict Mr. Hussein for conspiracy and hold him accountable for 9-11 but that by a system of moral judgments that allows us to exercise our sovereign power we are told there is no grounds.

There is no need to review the mountains of evidence (see McGurk Tutorial and Required Reading at the Moynihan) for it can be seen that the question of conspiracy, (the harder case), as well as the more general moral argument in the use of sovereign power, are turning on the values of the audience.

Mr. Jennings, Mr. Rather, would rather die before they sat down at a keyboard, let alone a camera, and recorded their method of thinking about these questions. They will never explain how Ramsey Yousef was able to leave Iraq for the first WTC plot? Why other plotters were sheltered by Iraq? The relationship between that plot and 9-11? Atta’s travels to Prague? And all the support given to the terrorists by Iraq over the years, does this constitute an “agreement,” “conspiracy” or not? What is your opinion?

To express your opinion you must thereby imply your value. To be in the mass media one can not go into the details of these questions, not because there is insufficient space or time, (they could use their internet sites), but because to be in the mass media one must remain superficial, “value neutral,” etc.

It is this opening that the fascist exploits like a virus finding a niche in the host. There are far more fascists than you have identified.

My judgment is that Iraq must have known that Ramsey Yousef was plotting to attack the WTC the first time as Iraqi Intelligence was known to monitor all international telephone calls. There were dozens of such calls. This alone establishes conspiracy. Iraq harbored plotters after the attack. This alone establishes conspiracy. Yousef traveled under papers (a legend) that could only have been supplied by Iraqi Intelligence. This alone establishes conspiracy.

Even by the rules of civilian criminal court Mr. Hussein was liable for the first WTC. Conspirators often try to get out of their conspiracies. But the requirement is quite high. Having started the conspiracy courts are reluctant to allow the criminal to draw a terminus.

As Yousef sat waiving to his girl friend from the helicopter, Mr. Hussein could have come to us and laid out the whole conspiracy for us. He did not do so. Therefore he is stuck for the subsequent acts of his fellow conspirators.

The rules for the use of sovereign authority are not as well spelled out. Our old Magistor Ludi, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, studied international law, wrote a whole book about it, and though we loved him very dearly we were reluctant to agree to any system that might limit our sovereign authority. I’m sure he was in this quite right and we conservatives will be judged by history quite wrong, but we have had our sovereign authority for some time and have grown accustom to it.

From this perspective our dear old Magistor Ludi would have had to yield to us. Mr. Hussein looked guilty as sin. From the sovereign’s point of view it does not really matter if he was guilty or not. He looked guilty. Others might as easily have perceived him guilty and concluded ‘There you see they do nothing.’

I said it before, I say it again: and I think Mr. Hussein should be destroyed.

He simply looks guilty and his continued existence is an offense against our sovereign authority. This is my value judgment. My system of morals.

There is the law of the commons, the Common Law, with which most of you are most familiar. The looting and rioting in Iraq, their need for police, all of that which entertains you every day in the mass media, all of that is the Common Law.

What interests you most holds second place in my system of values. Think on that for a moment. What so preoccupies your papers and broadcasts, the things you think are most important, are only second to me. Are values diverge.

Mark that. There is another law. Our dear old Magistor Ludi would be nodding his old gray head now. That smile on his lips. Do you know the title of Dr. Moynihan’s book?

Yes, this is that other law. This is why I recommended our troops be withdrawn to military reservations. They are the tool of this other law. They belong to the sovereign not the commons. Painting schools, repairing sewers, the commons no doubt regard it all as being vital. We do not.

Using an armored division to fight terrorists is like swatting at mosquitoes with a hammer.

There are certain fundamental facts. The mountains lay this way. The river crosses it here. Our philosophy starts with this, we must be in accord with these things. There are these limits. If your philosophy fails to apprise you of these limits, if it is not in accord, causes you to overlook these fundamental, elemental, facts then you will not be in accord with nature. Note conservatives that these mountains and rivers are not objective. Some philosophies fail to take them into account.

So this is where Mr. O’Reilly and I differ. Mr. Wiener’s whole life is a kind of lie. (Allan Watts would want us to appreciate that the insane are as “normal” as anyone. Which is why the Buddhist monks take them in. In there wildly spinning minds we see nature without any of our philosophies. Man before reason.)

We hold Mr. O’Reilly to a higher standard than his “I have not heard Savage tell a lie.” Heard those lies or not, we judge him to have heard them. When you get to be a multi-millionaire, with a huge news staff, the resources of a network, a Harvard graduate, etc., we hold you to a higher standard. You knew or you should have known.

You can not be in broadcasting in America in 2004 and not know the story of this web site. The Colonial Motel burglary. The stolen notebook. Our dear Yvonne. All of it. If Brian Wilson and Mrs. Jack Swanson know, then Bill O’Reilly must know: will be held to have known.

This standard is not objective it results from a series of values.

So too, Mr. Hussein: Tell me that there is no link and I shall conclude that you are in the mass media or that you are a fool.

Lecture Notes: 06-16-04

So they have escalated. They have now gotten Caroline of Progressive Insurance to participate. (Caroline at Progressive 1-800-321-9843)

You might be thinking, ‘Oh, no, they would not escalate their harassment. Not with hundreds of visitors a week! They know we are watching!’

So what? Do you think they care? Watch. That is what you have been doing for months. Some of you have been watching since 1991 for God’s sake. They do not care.

Do you think Frank Blaha wakes up in a cold sweat worrying about the insurance commissioner? Forgetaboutit.

The Insurance Commissioner of the State of California? Are you kidding? If the commissioner learns that GAB-Robbins has been using contractor’s kick backs to get files from corrupt insurance company examiners do you think he will do anything? Get real.

Oh, sure, he will do something. He will use the information to blackmail the insurance company. That is what he will do. This Insurance Commissioner has a history. He has done it before.

And the Commissioner before him? That is exactly what he did. He was shaking down insurance companies. He would bring the executives into an office in Sacramento, all around them would be these white cardboard file boxes, with the names of their insurance companies stenciled on them.

He would say, ‘Fellows, it’s like this, we (then he would waive his arm around indicating all these boxes he has got stacked up around them), we have got all this information on your claims operation . . . (then comes the pitch), but if you see your way clear to helping me with my campaign . . . we could forget all about this stuff.’

And he worked this scam on a bunch of companies just like that, then one day one of these insurance guys touches one of the boxes and it falls down. What do you know, it is empty. All them boxes they are all empty. Why he gots nothing on them.

So the guys out of a job. He is living in Hawaii now.

And this Commissioner? Believe me he is the same way.

After the Oakland fires he was the Commissioner back then before he got kicked out. You heard about them, of Oakland Hills fires ? 2,000 homes burned up all at once. They found the affirmative action fire chief, later, after the fire, hiding in a fire house. Well anyway, them houses they were all like 1930, 1940s, you know for California, they is old mother . . .well they is old.

So they got no, what do you call it, no, replacement cost coverage. You know? Well that is another scam. The insurance companies have three different ways of talking about replacement cost. You got your replacement cost coverage increase for the building which you might suppose is like, replacement cost coverage.

But that is where you would be wrong. It don’t mean that. That one means they raise your rates every so often automatically. It is a way for the insurance company to screw you, but only you say ‘OK screw me,’ so it is all, you know, like, legal.

What you are thinking about is like where they pay you them mother . . . replacement bucks. Right? Wrong. Now this is called replacement cost also. See? Then there is the contents, well they got replacement cost every which way, but guess what? They don’t got any of this shit in the Oakland Hills, least ways not for those mother . . . anyway not for the people with the cinders in their’s hair. You hear what I’m saying?

No replacement cost coverage for these mother . . . No replacement cost money for these 1930s, 1940s, type homes. Screw them.

So this Commissioner, who was Commissioner then, before the other Commissioner who is now living in Hawaii, well he has two options. One is he could reform the insurance industry and clear up the way they talk about insurance coverage.

Option two he could get all the insurance companies into a room and say ‘Look, you pay up or I will audit your claims files.’ See? Pay up or I will start doing my job.

And what do you think?

Yeah, they paid up. So now they do not have to worry about any mother . . . audits. And Frank Blaha, of GAB-Robbins, he sleeps easy at night. Oh, yes, everyone be sleeping easy now.

They don’t just want to visit the site they want me to know that they have been here. They want to leave a message. Using their browsers they could type in “New Ruskin College”, (which will now bring you here on any search engine), but instead they type in their names in their browser windows so that their visit will be recorded by the site engine. It could be argued that possibly they were just searching all sites. But I suggest that the repeated visits are done to let me know they have visited. They want me to know that they are watching. For example Michael Weiner’s name appears 39 times in the last few months in the browser window.

Some visitors only occasionally visit, for example, Rosie Allen has visited (see A Public Letter to Rosie Allen). Also Rosie Lee Allen has visited. And so has Rosie Allen KGO husband. (Ah, would that be Mr. Allen? Is it?) Lloyd Lindsey Young has paid us another visit, (see Top 40). David Gold KSFO has been left from the browser window. Ed Wygant, Russ Weiner, (see Don and Mike), and Ron Owens KGO have all left their names in the browser window. We have been visited by someone leaving the browser name, David Gregory Bush. Was that David Gregory? (see Psy Ops #6 or Imus Protest Handbill 04-14-04) Or was that Mr. Bush, the man himself? More likely Mr. Gregory. Truly a lost soul in search of himself. Notice that neither Sean Hannity nor Bill O’Reilly, have enter their names in the browser window, though we know they have visited, (see Imus Protest Handbill of 04-10-04 and Who KilledDuane Garrett Part II).

However, in the case of repeated visits by people who have been involved in the decades long harassment, who clearly know they are mentioned at this web site, why would they visit from a browser search? In other words, if you know you are mentioned here why not just type “New Ruskin College” and come here directly? For these visitors, like Michael Weiner, we can have greater confidence that the person who has repeatedly entered Dean Sodos, for example, in his browser window, is in fact: Dean Sodos. Who else would be interested?

Originally Dean Sodos was of interest to us only because on 9-11 after being informed that the Twin World Trade Center Towers had been hit by two planes and had collapsed, replied, “Oh, yes I heard about that. Was it an accident?” (see Judgment Day)

Dean Sodos’ conduct at Farmers when I worked there was suspicious. However, just because it appeared that he was acting improperly I did not assume that he was acting that way deliberately out of some ulterior motive of malice against me, for it is not easy to separate willful misconduct from ordinary misconduct, especially in the insurance business.

However, after the incident with Scott Bobro, (see Intel. Ops.) I became more suspicious. After the incident at Farmers Insurance with Scott Bobro I called Yvonne. I explained the situation and asked her:

Do you know Scott Bobro?

Counselor: Who?

Scott Bobro, of the Westlake Joe’s Bobros?

Counselor: What is that? A restaurant?

Yeah, Westlake Joe’s it is a restaurant in Daly City on Westlake Boulevard? The Bobros own it. So do you know him?

Counselor: No, I never heard of him.

Well he knows you, he made a reference to the letter I sent you about the break in at the Colonial Motel. He also was quoting from my stolen notebook. He knew about the letter I wrote to my sister but never sent. The one that was in the notebook. (see Intel. Ops. and Psy. Ops and How Don and Mike Removed the Evil One.) The one where I questioned my sister about how it was that my colleagues in Portland Maine knew about my mother’s death before I learned of it. You know the notebook that was stolen from the Colonial Motel?

Counselor: Was he your supervisor?

Now mark that question by Yvonne. I had not spoken to her since Duane Garrett’s death years before. I was talking to her now for the first time in years. (This was 2001.) Yet, you note that she asked not about Scott Bobro’s harassment, about the burglary and theft of my notebook from the Motel, (about which I had written her but that also was years before this phone conversation, (see Dear Yvonne at the Moynihan)), she asks not about any of these things, she asks if Scott Bobro was the claims supervisor at the claims office.

Why would she ask that? The clear implication is that if Scott Bobro was not the supervisor his harassment was not so serious, for in that case he would have had no direct control over my employment. This caused me to reflect that during the incident at Farmers Dean Sodos was one of the supervisors who seemed to be most enjoying the spectacle of Scott Bobro’s out burst. And on many other occasions Scott Bobro had Dean Sodos as his appreciative audience.

And now three years later, Scott Bobro’s and Dean Sodos’ names appear on the web browsers. Dean Sodos’ name repeatedly especially in the last few months. Farmers Insurance .com’s domain has been used 3 times in the last few weeks to access this site even though it was months ago that I was not hired for the job. Why?

I suggest that they want me to know that it was them who kept me form getting the job.

CenCal Insurance Services, the company that stole my letters and gave them to Mrs. Jack Swanson, (see CENCAL letters at the Moynihan and Who Killed Duane Garrett Part I), also has been checking in at the web site using the names CenCal and CenCal Insurance just so there will be no mistake. Again they already know that their name appears on the site why not come here directly? Why enter their own name in the browser?

They also want me to know that they are watching. Then too there are some visitors who want to give me a more detailed message. For example, several times the browser window has the message, “Listen to Don Imus in the Morning.”

Lecture Notes: 06-10-04

What happens if Senator John F. F. Kerry wakes up to the fact that President Bush’s religious scruples are putting the nation at risk? All biological research is interrelated. Stem Cell lines are needed in many sectors of research and the failure to develop the lines slows research in those sectors, and all related sectors, across the entire front.

“In August 2001, President Bush enacted a policy that limited stem cell research to the embryonic stem cell lines in place as of that date. Of the 78 stem cell lines in the federal registry, only 19 have been found to be usable.

“The National Institutes of Health has granted that it is still unclear what can be accomplished with those lines. Researchers claim that the currently existing lines are not suitable for clinical trials and that the productions of new lines is essential. But since Bush's policy does not allow federal funding for companies producing such lines, businesses are relying on the private sector.

“But until new cell lines are produced, products may never come to the market, and businesses are being stymied by current federal policy, experts attending the BIO 2004 conference here said Wednesday.” ----Bush policy denounced at Bio 2004, by Nicholas Yulico, Oakland Tribune

Last week Mr. Kerry identified biological defense as an important issue. What happens if he should figure out that Mr. Bush’s personal religious views are putting the nation at risk? Not just that we are at risk but that we are at risk because of private religious views? What then? How would we answer?

In Item Number 23 (see Army Navy Club) we pointed out that our only chance of survival in bio warfare is to “climb the learning curve faster than our enemies.”

This statement was too optimistic. For the aggressor has the advantage. It is a much simpler technical problem to design an offensive biological weapon than it is to design a system to detect, identify, and cure a biological attack.

We have to climb the learning curve much faster than our enemies.

Every day’s delay places the nation at risk.

In any case the religious arguments are unconvincing. To treat single cells, or even large groups of cells in a Petri dish as “human life” seems an example of religious fanaticism rather than of moral conviction.

As a Republican I have always agreed with the party on abortion. After the bloody crimes of the 20^th Century I can not imagine that one could argue that the state could take any other position than to be “pro life.”

Of course, the medical profession’s boards of governance must ultimately judge professional medical judgment. But if the state is consulted there can be only one reply: pro life. I have always shared the view of Helmut Kohl who, on showing a day care center to American visitors, commented that this was his anti abortion policy.

Yet here Mr. Bush has taken the thesis of pro life to the extreme of logical absurdity. To resort to God, as an explanation for his position is useless, for reasons we explain in “Wrong.” (See “Wrong” : Parts I to IV at the Max Weber Institute.) He will have to do better than that if he wants to explain himself.

What next, funerals for women of child bearing age every month that they are not pregnant?

We can only hope Mr. Kerry continues to snooze.

Some times one wonders who the President has hired to advise him. His campaign platform includes:

1, An Executive prohibition on new Stem Cell lines, even though existing lines can continue to be used. How does anyone possibly explain why old lines are morally good while new ones are immoral?

2, According to Mr. Bush, anyone can bring in any number of foreign nationals to perform any job anywhere in the country, and no proof of economic need is required. When Mr. Bush’s domestic affairs adviser was questioned if there shouldn’t be at least some Federal requirement that there was an economic need he replied, “Our Administration prefers a market based solution to immigration.” There has been a 30% increase in illegal immigration since Mr. Bush’s declaration. (Note that real wages of the bottom 20% in our economy have declined in the last 10 years. (Overpriced labor has not been the problem in this sector of the economy.))

3, Even though the economy has recovered the Administration continues to pump the economy with deficits, and there is no proposal, much less effort to reduce the national debt. Or perhaps you have just given up on the future. (see Army Navy Club No. 26)

4, Education vouchers were compromised away with Mr. Kennedy, and have never been so much as mentioned since. The expansion of Federal aid to education has been a goal of this Administration but there has been no effort to innovate using technology to lower the cost and expand access. (Increasing opportunity by expanding, for example, paramedical professional education which would also have the additional advantage of lowering medical costs has never been considered. Or for example college costs that increase many times faster than inflation could be reduced by 25% if High School students could complete the Freshman year courses during their Senior year in High School, turning college into a 3 year program.)

5, No government in exile was created for Iraq in 2002, and it has taken 16 months to establish one even though this was the main strategic goal. (It seems clear from Mr. Wolfowitz’s testimony that this failure to create a government in exile was a deliberate policy.)

6, For reasons which were never explained the Administration thought it a good idea to announce that it was trying to reduce by several millions the number of employees in the private economy who could benefit from overtime pay.

7, There has been no proposal to reform the overlapping coverages of health insurance to rationalize the insurance industry and lower the costs of health insurance. (For example an “assigned risk” program to provide catastrophic coverage would allow the insurance industry to “cap” extreme cases and thereby lower costs for the policy holders making rates more predictable.)

8, The $6 billion for Bio Shield was important but what is needed is a Manhattan Project , larger by a factor of 500, to accelerate Biological research to safeguard the nation. All the costs will be repaid in health cost savings a hundred fold alone, to say nothing of preventing the expected bio attack. Why wait to do the research on the human genome which you will eventually want to do? Whole cities need to be built, outside of population centers, on the scale of the Manhattan Project.(Even after SARS there is still no program to screen arriving passengers, or any other simple quarantine program.)

9, The tax code continues to be churned at the expense of the middle class, and no effort to lead in controlling the looting of corporations or even fostering corporate governance has been made by the Administration.

10, The President famously said that what he liked about being President was that he did not have to explain himself, people had to explain themselves to him.

This is exactly the problem.

Why are the poll numbers so low?

Why are the poll numbers so low!