Narrowing gun safe selection

In my previous entry on Selecting a gun safe I gave my overall criteria for a gun safe and I won't rehash those here.  With the criteria firmly in mind and also a budget to beat, I set about looking just about everywhere I could find that could meet my minimal criteria and who just might have a decent price.  If the listed price (MSRP) was too high, I just crossed that safe off the list – if they want to give a discount they can say so right up front and be honest that their stated MSRP is just too high.

Also note that I don't consider a gun safe a security safe, in truth, but a high end industrial cabinet with locking and fire protection features.  This means I also looked at the antique and used safe markets to see what was available because, really, if I could get such a hefty cabinet without a lot of amenities to my front door for a few hundred, then I would be willing to put in sweat equity to improve it or hand it over to a restoration shop.  I learned a lot about safe history this way... more than I wanted to, but you never know when the odd bit of historical information will come in handy.  With that said I did my best to standardize the feature set, which meant that while a stock safe might have a low cost, it would have to have additional work done to it for things like bolts, fire protection, etc. unless it offered something unique to counter what would be a normal deficiency (say, having a body made of stainless steel but only at 11 gauge).  Finally, to leaven the mix, I got one quote from a high end manufacturer for their lowest end model that fit my needs, just to give a sanity check on everything.

There are a lot of non-big box store brands out there and it is worth the effort to find them as they can offer somewhat better quality at an equivalent or even lower cost than those with large advertising budgets but are skimping on their specs.  I was not out to eliminate the big name brands, but the minimal spec. and pricing limit process effectively did that.  The fun thing was that for a few of the brand names you can dig back just a few years and find advertising that will tout them never stinting on quality or materials and, just a few years down the road, they are skimping on materials which makes you wonder a lot about quality.

In no particular order, the list and do keep in mind that this is personal experience only, not an in-depth, customer base review or anything of that sort:

Security Products

These were not the first people I found, but they did have the most unique set of safes and features.  Their claim to fame is the Clearview Safe, which features bullet resistant glass so you can get the combined benefits of a display case AND a safe.  Great stuff and I can't afford that and actually wouldn't want it.

Their other unique feature is the use of ATM style key locking mechanisms for their safes.  Since they started in that business, they have an idea of what your typical semi-sophisticated criminal has in mind for getting past security features.  I got a pricing for their Regency Safe, which fit my basic criteria.  I actually like the locking mechanism from the gadget standpoint: yeah a criminal can beat you up to get your key, but they can also beat you up to get your combination.  Keys are also easier to hide and I can think of a few dozen places to slip a key that no one will look for or even find, metal detector or no.  I would get that very Evil Genius from a James Bond flick putting a key into the safe and having it open itself... really, that is just plain cool.

Unfortunately they hit at the high end of the price range and while they didn't out price the high end manufacturer, they did put themselves at the top of the field for everyone else.  When it came down to final selection, price matters when all else is equal.

 

Smith Security Safes

Anyone wanting to secure their firearms before a new child arrived would normally just purchase a safe or a bunch of chain locks and be done with it.  Most people would NOT build a gun safe, right off the bat.  That is the founding story here and the business started in the 1980's and then got into the vault door end of things which was the majority of their business right up to around 2009, where safes suddenly started pushing ahead in the sales column.  When I first ran across the website I didn't know that there was an actual dealer for these safes, but as they are just one site orders can go either way.

Unlike every other company, Smith Security Safes does not give you a 'stock safe' but gives you the full itemized price of everything they normally put into a safe.  That was daunting to look at until I realized that a spreadsheet would do me just fine so that I could get the three types that generally fell into my sizing category ( Redwood, Oak and Oak Plus) and all I needed was what shipping would cost.  I contacted the owner of the business to ensure that I got the numbers right, got the basic shipping costs and had my first  manufacturer that handily beat my price limit with all the minimum features being met!  That was only a week into my search.  Suddenly I had multiple choices to work with.

 

Sun Welding Safes

This was actually the last company I found and it was by accident going through a message board based in California.  Then I saw the safes being resold by an online retailer and decided to drop by the web site and look around.  With good local word of mouth, people visiting the manufacturing site and decent customer service spanning decades, its just a wonder that they can survive in California.

I went with one of their Pony Express safes for a quote, but that then needed additional features added into it so as to meet minimum specs and each of those small things cost money.  What had started out as the lowest cost contender now only became the lowest cost that was going to set the price range's bottom by beating out Smith Safes.  By the end between the last three that I would have to decide upon, the price range was down to $150, delivered.  From what I can see they offer a fine safe, don't change the product lines all that much over time and I would be happy to own that safe.

 

Hall's Safe

From their satisfied customers the one thing I heard over and over again: You can't go wrong with a Hall's.

They blow my minimum specs all to hell and gone, what can I say?  They are my sanity check on pricing and they bust past the budget limit I had very easily.  Just their Standard Stage in my size category is a far better safe than I need.  More than happy to get the quote from them!  Nothing else I looked at will touch their price.  Damn right I would be happy with a Hall's.  Ain't happening.  Besides I am no longer convinced that they would give me the best value for the price.

 

Vault Pro USA

This is a start-up small business that is expanding in... California.  I'm getting the idea that when CA makes it impossible for the safe manufacturers to continue and they leave, then the State is done for.

I was impressed with the line-up from Vault Pro, and theirs was the first safe to meet all my minimum specs with just one modification (at no extra cost!) in the price quote.  Their safes actually beat my specs in most other areas and they have a good line of upgrades in body thickness that are pre-priced so that if you want to get into something that will compete at the low end of the bigger, established luxury end of things, you can.   They seem to have a decent handle on just what basic security is in a gun safe and then went ahead and made sure they met or exceeded those minimums.

This would not be the lowest cost safe in the round-up, but would not be the highest one, either, as I wasn't looking for something to compete with the higher end manufacturers that don't spend on an advertising budget.  I actually consider that very interesting.

 

Ironman Safes

Actually their FB Page does a better job showing the company than their web site does.  I found this company a couple of times through online resellers, but finally decided to take a look at them a bit more.  The safe I looked at in the size range did not have the top/bottom bolts that were on my requirements list, but did have a full hinge-side top to bottom passive bar seal to give the door added resistance to pry attacks and to totally thwart bolt drilling attacks.  I hadn't seen many passive designs in anything but the vintage and antique safes, and this was the first of the modern safes that showed one.

As the stock safe at the resellers site had everything I wanted otherwise, and included shipping costs, I decided that I would give an alternate security allowance for Ironman Safes and wanted to have them to help balance out the selection group.  In the end they would make the final three to decide upon because it is always worth having someone doing just a little different to help make sure you've done your analysis right.

 

Sportsman Steel Safes

I found this manufacturer first, and its hard to miss them in a search engine look-up.  I contacted them through their webform for a price quote... and a week later I got a great call from a sales rep. and that they would send a quote to me via e-mail.  That e-mail bounced which happens on a very rare occasion from my main e-mail provider, and I got a phone call and gave an alternate e-mail to get it to me.  Two weeks later and I sent a message asking for the price quote.  I generally rely on e-mail as my limited time for physical and mental acuity is limited in the day, and e-mail is easier to handle as asynchronous comms.

Luckily I wrote down the verbal one to have when going into the mix.  Lack of sales follow-up does matter, however.  No matter how nice the safe (or any product come to that) and no matter how nice the sales person, actually being able to get a price quote out and assure its arrival is important.

 

To narrow this field of 7 to 5 was easy: Hall's went and so did Sportsman's Steel.  Do note that this was not throwing out the high and the low, but actually seeing what fit the price range and what was actually available for me to look at in the way of price quotes.  That was easy.

Narrowing things down after that was much, much harder as that remaining field had $900 between top and bottom, but cost isn't the sole criteria: best value for the money is.  In other words I was willing to go $200 over budget if I got a head and shoulders much better safe for that money.  That I had to actually sleep on for a couple of nights as it isn't an easy question and is purely subjective in nature.  Was a single security feature worth the money to pay for it?

If that question is hard then the other end of the scale and weeding out amongst the low end of it is even harder: there are a group of safes and manufacturers that all make the same basic product with a high and low end with just a small number of details amongst them that set one apart from another.  Size of business matters and so does where they were in the business cycle: were they new, were they expanding, were they established?  So does what you are getting in the way of protection and both Ironman and Vault Pro had features that were standard that the others didn't and Security Products had a feature that no one else even considered.  For customization it is hard to beat Smith Security Safes or Sun Welding and they were at the low end of field.  And how can the California businesses stay in business with their business climate?  Would any of them be around next year?  Would a few of them de-camp for lower taxes and overhead cost?  That means you get a multi-variable matrix of cost, features, and business trade-offs that must also include what the manufacturer can arrange as stock 'get it to ground level in front of your home' as their final cost.  Only that cost is objective, the rest is subjective in nature and it is those subjective factors that decide outcomes.  That is a process I described elsewhere in the political realm, but serves as an analysis tool for other venues, as well.

Yes I did narrow it down to 3 and then, finally, to the selection and purchase, which has now gone into production.

At this point I'm looking to figure out how to save on shipping costs by looking on my own since the manufacturer is amenable to having a different shipper.  Of course I want the shipping, delivery and basic placement of the safe done all in one package, along with removal of the skid and packaging.  I would actually look to do that with ANY of the final 5, so this doesn't say much about who I chose.  Shipping, delivery and install are all something somewhat apart from the safe, itself, although base cost shipping if I can't find something better played a part in the decision, itself.

So there you have it – how I decided on a gun safe.

Not WHAT gun safe I decided upon, but the process and procedure to do it.

Selecting a gun safe

Actually not just a gun safe but a place to store a few valuable items and documents as well, since my firearms collection doesn't amount to many pieces.  A place to store them safely means that open storage has just run out of space and the time has arrived to collect the collection plus all the extraneous stuff, like spare parts, manuals, and even the cleaning supplies into one volume that is secure.

I've read a lot of the do's and don'ts of getting a gun safe and I do take to heart that you don't buy for today, but for tomorrow because it is more than likely that you will need to store more than you thought and inevitably collect more items.  If the economy allows any survival at all, that is.  Speaking of cash, you also need a budget for this so you don't go hog-wild.  Money will determine quality, but space will also play a major role in cost, as well.  Thus the first part of the process is determining just how much you have and what space is available to put a safe.  That means you will want to fill up that space with a safe, not purchase a safe to hold your materials.  From that you either get: a closet, a place in the basement/garage, or any other open space that can be cleared out where a safe will not impede the traffic pattern necessary to walk around your abode.  These three choices then dictate certain fall-out decisions on safe purchase, and I had to think through 2 out of 3, not having a garage and the basement is out of room due to my workshop... and yes, some tools will get stored in the safe as they are the ones that would facilitate getting into same.  Those also take up space.

First is a closet, which generally means a 5' high limitation due to the hanging rod for clothes.  If you take that out and have a shelf that is decently high, then a 6' safe is about the maximum height you can get into a closet without contacting someone to install armor plating into the closet and getting a vault door for it.  That latter is a bit much to go through for a closet, so it got nixed right off the bat.  What that left was getting a safe into a closet and only the upstairs ones are available for that, which means you will want to think about if you can actually maneuver a rigid body object up and down the staircase to the upper floor.  In general this is possible with the floor plan I'm living in, so that left a regular safe as an option, although the work of getting hauled up would be one requiring expert movers... who will be required for anything but the one alternative that isn't a rigid body safe: a modular safe.

Your standard 60" x 30" x 24" safe should fit in a double door closet just fine, and that is what I had to deal with.  In fact I could get up to 35" wide with no problems.  And at that size a safe would just barely fit what I have to put into it... still I thought it through and realized that in a closet it is very difficult to get to the sides and rear of the safe to attack it (if you are a criminal) without first having to either remove structural framing members of the doors and wall.  And torching a safe in a closet is a massive fire hazard and quite counter-productive to being inconspicuous.  You don't need the best of side wall thickness, just a sturdy internal frame and safe door, plus bolt holes to put lag bolts in and bolt the safe to the floor.  There are lots of choices, including the modular safe types like from Snap Safe and Zanotti Armor.  A modular safe is one that is made to be taken apart for ease of moving it from room to room and is an excellent choice if you are a renter or a member of the military that gets base changes on a frequent basis.  Instead of a rigid body you get a pallet that has boxes that contain the major walls of the safe that you then just piece together wherever the safe has to go.  This is actually a neat idea... if I could get enough volume out of the closet space, that is.

Size matters and the closet doesn't have enough of it.

Researching for the closet space meant that one other major concern came up – electronic locks.  Any reader of this blog knows that I do not place something like a long-lasting CME out of the question in the near future as those major events appear to have a cyclicity rate and a pre-requisite of a very quiet sunspot cycle, which we are now in.  The answer for that (and an EMP if Iran or NoKo decides to have some nuclear fun) means either a plain old dial lock or a dual lock where either opens the safe (Ft. Knox does the dual bit as separate pieces, and Cannon integrates them into one piece for their high-end safes, such as they are).  Later research would uncover one other way to do this, but I didn't know that was available at the start of my safe quest.

My basement has no real space available and I don't want to deal with a getting my hammer drill out to put in holes so I can install lag bolts.  This is something you need to do with any concrete surface that a safe will be on, and really points out that expert installers actually do have a place in the safe ecosystem.  This is also a concern as I have two half-flights of stairs to get to the main floor of my residence, one concrete the other internal wood construction.  About the maximum any single solid wood construction stair can take is about 1,200 lbs, but a boxed safe can be slid up stairs on 2x4's or a sheet of plywood to distribute the weight.  Also even though this is 'live weight' for putting on a floor, the safe will just sit in one place and the maximum most main level construction can hold is 2,500 lbs (varying on construction, wood, joist spacing, etc.).  Safe movers are a must for this sort of situation, really.  The wall to wall carpeting is in the 'original to the house' state and is getting on 3 decades old, which means I don't really care about the condition of it, overmuch, and the safe should do just fine on what is there.

The 'there' in question is space in the living room that can easily be cleared for a 72" x 40" x 28" safe.  As it isn't really going into a corner, there is only one side wall of the safe that will be inaccessible, although the back will be very difficult to work with for any criminal type as it will be against a shelf overhanging that second half-flight of stairs.  The safe, itself, needs to be a major deterrent against casual smash'n'grab theft in which only a light bag of hand tools can be brought along.  Start banging with a sledgehammer on a safe in my living conditions and neighbors will notice.  Thus prybars and such become the main threat as well as your basic 'bust the lock out' sorts of dimwitted felon-to-be.

As I went through the literature, presentations and other useful material, the idea dawned that the people making safes had already addressed this with 'relockers' and other fun fail-safe methods which are meant to foil the drill and screwdriver attacks on a lock opening the safe.  This became another item to put on the list of must haves: a relocker or two.

Next up is what it takes to actually deter prybar attacks, and that is generally an internal means to secure the door (bolts or internal fitting passive hinge-side material) which starts with the actual front of the door and its fit into the frame.  A good place to start is with 1/4" of steel plate for the door and if there is hardened plate behind crucial parts to slow more intensive drilling attacks, then that is very good.  But 1/4" thickness is really a pretty decent deterrent against most short prybars and even gives wrecking bars a run for their money.  A good, solid frame for the bolts to keep the door in place also slows the prybar attack, which is all to the good.  With just these items and my budget, I've eliminated the true monster safes, and a fair number of the low end safes as well.  In fact that 1/4" is something you want on for a closet safe, and more is better as the door is the only easy thing a would-be thief can easily get to.

Now I'm not counting thieves as incredibly stupid and one might actually carry a decent fireman's axe around to break into stuff.  A bit out of the 'easy to carry and be inconspicuous' concept, but a hefty axe is something to consider when looking at side body thickness.  Growing up in a Rust Belt region with the remains of industry dotting the landscape also meant that I got familiar with all sorts of industrial storage containers.  This is important as many had to hold engines for automobiles, or other clunky stuff like compressors for ocean-going vessels.  Metal cabinetry had to be pretty decent stuff and you learn that the lower the number for sheet metal thickness (that is its gauge) the thicker it is for actual measurements.  It is one of those inverse relationships like the gauge rating for a shotgun where higher gauge means lighter and smaller shells.  Here is what I call a 12 gauge side wall for a safe: inadequate for industrial use. There is an 18 gauge cabinet I have that is just fine for lightweight materials and offers zero theft impedance.  Yes 12 gauge is thicker... but not thick enough in my book.  At 10 gauge (just a bit thicker than 1/8") you start to get to decent, low level industrial shelving and cabinets.  If a good half-ton of metal crunching against the side of a cabinet is fine for industrial abuse, then abuse with a fireman's axe will take someone who is either a weightlifter or just incredibly skilled with an axe to do any real damage to metal at that thickness.

Next is the other major threat to guns and valuables: fire.  Way back in the day to get fire resistance for a safe you poured concrete into pre-made forms, let it 'dry' and then put that in between the interior and exterior sheet metal of the safe.  If you made the safe with water concerns in mind, you could just directly pour the concrete between the walls for a form-fitting, fire resistant media.  This method is still used by a couple of manufacturers, safe with better and somewhat more space age materials.  The majority of manufacturers use fireboard, which is basically sheetrock like you get installed in your home, but made with a bit more fire resistant materials.  One thickness of that stuff at 5/8" gets you through about a half hour of a fire with little heat transmitted to the interior of the safe.  Another method is ceramic fiber compressed and then put between the walls.  While the stuff would normally burn if it was solid, by breaking it down to fibers you get an outer charring effect to slow the spread of heat and without fresh air there is no real way for it to suddenly burst into flames. 

People need to be able to judge just how long it would take for their abode to burn to the ground and think about that if fire rating is a concern.  I figured a minimum of a half-hour and a maximum of one hour for my residence: if a real fire gets going, there isn't much to stop it and it would be fast and hot.  Also for safes is a liner that will expand under heat to stop said fresh air flow and also stop water and smoke.  Expansive liner for door seal is a must. Thus I'm now getting a decent list of the 'must have' items:

1) Space, maximize utilization thereof,

2) EMP/CME proof lock,

3) Bolt holes to bolt safe to floor,

4) 1/4" minimum thick door,

5) Bolts on four sides of door or passive system that does the equivalent when mixed with bolts,

6) A decent frame thickness, generally a minimum of 3x the thickness of the door, more is better,

7) 10 gauge minimum body construction,

8) Fire resistant material, and while there is no particular order my preference is for the ceramic, but the others would do just as well,

9) Fire expansive door sealing material.

After that comes the interior and almost every safe offers a relatively standard set of firearms with mixed storage options.  As strange as it may seem to say it, this is in the 'nice to have' category as I have enough gun socks and soft sided cases to allow for loose storage until I could either make or buy the proper internal components.

In the 'should have' category there is exterior finish which really should NOT be glossy but either matte or textured.  Black works well as does a dark gray or any other dark toned color.  Heck if a company put it through a major bluing and then did a matte clear over that, I would be fine with it.  Also a stepped or jigsaw door for added fire and theft resistance go into the 'should have' zone.

For triage of desires, I'm coming up short on the 'should have' and 'be nice to have' and heavy on the 'must have' items.  Luckily there are a lot of options at my price range for this sort of thing, but the prestige firms all get knocked out due to price.  So no Halls or Graffunder, or Pendleton make the cut due to cost.

There is a final set of 'must have' items and they are not for material items but those things that I see as important that are not just steel thickness or fire resistance.  These items are: must be American Made and must be from a Small Business.  The latter is pretty easy to do, since almost all safe companies are small businesses.  The former, however, starts to knock out the low and mid-range of many of the Big Box and Big Name You See Everywhere safes.  Getting something that is not Chinese made is starting to look like a mid- to high-end requirement for pricing.  That sucks, but there it is, and requires research on each and every safe line from the Big Names out there as they are starting to farm out the low end of their lines or alternative names that sound almost as good to China.

I've narrowed my decision point to five companies and tomorrow I will finally place the order.  It is not the lowest cost, but the best value in my opinion.

More on that for a future article.

Just a few quick thoughts on the GOP 'debate' last night

First I didn't watch it all the way through.  I had some things needing to be done and got through some of the first half-hour and then the last half-hour and have done a bit of reviewing of the 'talking points' put up at other sites.

It wasn't pretty, that's for sure.

My basic complaint about the 'debates' is that they are not helping to educate voters but get out talking points by candidates.  Some of that does help to illuminate what a candidate believes, but there is often a stark contrast between their record, their prior works and what they are now running on so as to leave the viewer a bit at sea about exactly what a candidate stands for.  This TV format is dated, decrepit and essentially worthless in the modern age as no single question can illuminate a candidate while a single one can sink them.  That is not fair to the audience, the electorate and the body politic as a whole.  A single bad utterance, a single 'gotchya' and that could be the doom of a candidate who has worthy ideas in other realms but is out on a far limb on one or two topics.  Without a more in-depth discussions (not a debate, but a discussion) the electorate is ill-served and the media is well served to become power brokers.  That is how they see their function up until 2010: being that decisive 5 point swing for or against a candidate.

At the early stages a different form of discussion would provide a lot more interest, some illumination of individuals and offer a setting whereby the candidates are not about talking points but explaining their points of view.

The best format for this sort of thing I have ever seen on media are the Fred W. Friendly seminars or programs, hosted by the late Mr. Friendly.  He was able to bring a diverse group of people in on a subject (be it on the economy, foreign affairs, or social programs) and lead an actual discussion amongst a group of individuals that ranged from politicians and policy wonks to industry analysts and corporate heads, plus a smattering of 'experts' to help keep things going.  The questioning by Mr. Friendly was challenging, at times, but served as a basis to help examine differences between perceived political policy and actual effects and outcome.  Even on those topics that were non-political, he always served as the intermediary for a discussion so that the audience was served by having a wide array of ideas and idea-makers present to create an understanding of what it was they were saying.

There are very few trusted figures with as good a staff and knowledge as Mr. Friendly today, and fewer still that are trusted as being open and transparent about what they believe and yet to challenge themselves and their own beliefs in front of the public.  No hollywood star or even most of the modern news presenters can do that, today.  Perhaps Chris Wallace, Britt Hume or Juan Williams (I've seen him put bias aside to be fair on programs, so think he could do this and well) from FNC, but he would need a lot of help getting trusted individuals into a Presidential mix to help move discussions along.  Most of the weekend shows and roundtables are too media oriented to do much of any good, and the idea is to find someone who is unbiased and doesn't care about THEIR media image but in leading a discussion.

A major point of such discussions, say in a 2 hour format, would be to have the candidates interact with policy and industry specialists on a topic or set of topics, and keep track of what the candidates can come to agreement upon.  The last half-hour would be to let the candidates work out a party platform plank that they can ALL agree to run on.  It would be made in PUBLIC, not behind closed doors, and while an audience may be present as observers, they are not participants unless the experts would like to bin some questions on topics so that a few might serve as discussion points.

What this would do is two-fold:

1) It would identify and illuminate commonalities of what needs to be done not just by the President of the US but by political parties.  Having a party committee or set of small voting blocks run the platform process is incestuous in nature and needs to be out in the open.  Also it would REMOVE those areas from any future 'debates' and winnow things down to the major DIFFERENCES between the candidates.  It creates 'common ground' based on the best ideas that every candidate can agree to.

Last night the only good thing to come out of the 'debates' was the essential feeling that there needs to be a major reduction in the size, scope and power of the federal government starting with the EPA, Dept. of Education, and then Dept. of Energy and those parts of Interior dealing with energy.  Can we get that as a common platform plank for all the candidates so that the only differences are those candidates who JUST want to do that and those who want to get rid of MORE government?

2) You may or may not like a candidate in all areas, and this would help to show why you agree/disagree with a candidate as they would have time on an essential topic to outline their ideas.  What it also does, however, is let those candidates with some very good ideas present them and talk about them which may preserve their good ideas even if they drop out as a candidate.  Frankly I like a few things Ron Paul says and agrees with, as I do Rick Santorum and even John Huntsman who I generally disagree with, has some valid ideas on taxation and the economy that need to be explored.  You can't do that in a 'debate' setting and, frankly, even the so-called 'top tier' candidates are not shining in areas  that are making them lose votes and possibly voters.

I disagree with Rick Perry's stance on illegals, and the general good feelings Mitt Romney has towards just tinkering with a fundamentally broken system of government (where is Chainsaw Al Dunlap when you need him?), as well as Herman Cain's idea of a 'National Sales Tax' which is something that if it could have been done it WOULD have been done by Progressives decades ago as they love new ways to tax people which means it is constitutionally suspect to PROGRESSIVES.  That says a lot, right there.  Those are just ready examples, mind you, but they are indicative of the entire field in which a candidate can bring some valid ideas to the table and then, as they are forced to get a whole array of answers down pat, are put on a spotlight and expected to answer any question on anything.  Yet where there is common ground, there should be no more questions: the answers are known and when they are common to ALL the candidates, then they become something KNOWN to the population as a whole.

 

As a citizen I am ill-served by the current 'debate' format and venue as it places too much emphasis on the media, gotchya questions, and some cat fighting verbal by-play that raises vitriol and distrust of any candidate taking part in such and the media asking such questions.  In these long months long before a Primary, the candidates could serve themselves, each other and the general public by driving out their major points and coming to agreement about major policy needs that they will all agree to go forward with no matter WHO wins the election.  Indeed they are expected to help, advise and move these points forward even if one or ALL of them lose.  That would help the Congressional delegates to also understand that if they don't run on THIS platform, then they really don't belong in the party and that when they take office they are not only expected to push the platform forward but they can ask for HELP in doing that. 

Yes some 'popular' politicians might be forced to leave by having their party credentials pulled, and flee to 'the other party': but do you really want a spineless blob Upon the Hill as YOUR Representative or Senator?  Because your vote for a candidate from a party should MEAN something beyond the individuals involved.  Even if you generally didn't LIKE a candidate but they AGREE to push these major items forward, you might just reconsider voting on one or two issues and see if the entire platform is a better fit for you even if it DOESN'T contain your one or two issues you care about.

The 'debate'?  Some up, some down, lots of smoke, little illumination and no real help for the Nation or its citizens to understand the future that we will build together as citizens.  And, strangely, if we can't find candidates individuals who can begin to understand their role as our representatives in government, now, then we will be ill-served in that future and even lose out on a major portion of it because political parties with campaigns and their drift towards being glib and not offering insights into our future well being are an awful way to run a Nation or express the will of the people.

This 20th century format and set of ideas must go in the 21st as the new century is presenting us with the tools to empower the individual to build a future unlike any dreamt of even 30 years ago.  It is not the government that is of the horse and buggy era, but our political parties and their foundations, and it is showing badly in this modern age.  And if they don't start to adapt NOW then in 50 years they will not be here as the people will find a better way to do things that makes the idea of 'gatekeepers', 'debates' and even 'campaigns' meaningless.  And as my predictions on the out years seem to come true much, much, much faster than I ever expect them to, I am having to prepare to see that future within my life time and not too far down the road.  That 50 years is a PESSEMISTIC OUTLOOK but the roads all lead away from our current media and party system and nothing they do will hold it together much longer.

We are entering a Dawn of a  New Era and it will whipsaw you if you don't prepare for it NOW because it is happening NOW.

Future, Past

This is still a vanity blog as I said when I started it at the end of DEC 2005: this is not a dialogue blog, nor one that particularly entices commentary. I added the comments feature at the behest of a few individuals who then, of course, rarely commented. It is not that sort of blog, not a social blog. For the most part I am not a social person, and rarely did I go out when I was well and now, in worse straights, those times are limited still further. The social gatherings I did go to were rarely those to 'blow off steam' but, rather, had a point to them: conventions, interest meetings and gaming sessions. I dearly love society and those that keep it going. Unfortunately I am not refreshed nor renewed when partaking of it.

Also while I may write about current events it is in no way to assert that they should be read now, in the present, when these things are current. This blog has not been about the now, the present, but about a time after now, a time when these messages in bottles dispersed into caches around the globe will be available to those who need them. I desperately want them to not be needed by those in the future who will stumble across them.

Hope, while many things, is not a strategy.

It has been my pleasure and my horror to examine the 'problems' of the modern world in regards to terrorism. The horror, beyond the activity itself, is the degradation of our language, politics and even how we conceive of such things as society as we head down a path that is unmoored from the past. The past is to be our teacher and, as a teacher, she is not necessarily nice, sweet, kind, decent and even has some rather harsh concepts to get across to us. If we tremor in fear at those lessons, seek to say 'we are much better now' or to do worse and say 'what bad people these were in the past' we then distance ourselves from who and what we are as human beings. The horrors of the past are sometimes done in ignorance of what it is that is being done: the Children's Crusade began with such fervor over the innocent going to war, their fate, however, could have been predicted by any military expert who stepped away from the ideology and just looked at the skills and logistics of those going to war. World War I was taken on with the full and complete knowledge of how warfare had fundamentally changed as seen in the US Civil War and, yet, that was all discounted because we were (after all) Americans and uncouth. Yet the brutal logic of rate of fire, increased accuracy at far further distances and the invention of the machine gun all had precursors in the US Civil War that saw the first static trench warfare of the modern era in the Siege of Richmond. Europe had decided to ignore the past in that instance and in that of the Children's Crusade, and the result was horror beyond belief. Today the sensibilities of the effete elite are queasy even at the mention of war and what it is, as a function of Nation States. This does not get you an era without war, but an era with old forms of warfare that were being crushed when we were civilized now finding new root and growing quickly.

Those who wish to point out the cold facts of what warfare is, in the modern sense, are shunned by those who dare not even let themselves think of human conflict. When it is pointed out that the civilized rules of war that we have created to ensure the absolute brutality of war is kept at a minimum, they scoff, at once, and point to Dresden or Hiroshima. Yet the logic of Total War is that public military forces are but a representation of their Nation State and that mass war requires mass production which, in its turn, requires that the commerce of the Nation State be put into the battlefield to support the logistics of mass warfare. In a very real sense World War I and II were not won on the battlefield, but in the factories, mines, dams and productive capacity of the Nations involved to field forces. Soviet Russia moved entire factories to the Urals lest they be over-run and the Nation lose its production capability. Germany was at once blocked from resources and then had their productive capacity bombed and that was in retaliation for Germany doing the same thing to the UK. Japan did not realize the true wealth of North America in her resources and idled factories, and the fact that the Nation had to buy much of the steel seen in its aircraft, tanks and ships from the US before the war, speaks volumes about the inability of the island Nation to last through a long war. That is why they went after Manchuria, raped Peking, and went after Dutch and British holdings that had oil fields attached to them: the resources were necessary to run a modern war.

This logic of war cannot be glossed over and say that we are less civilized for waging it this way, and any student of history will look back at the 30 Years and 100 Years Wars and see that even without modern productive capacity, the populations were not exempt from the ravages of war and, in fact, were often the targets of war, though not due to industrial might but due to religious concerns. The absolute horror of 20% of Europe dead due to the 30 Years War started the Western Nation State into the idea of civilizing warfare and examining just what war was in the era of the Nation State. Here the differentiation of the powers of a Nation State and its government were put in context of society and discourse between Nations so that it could be examined, reflected upon and codified. The logic of those time still exists, today, in Total War and we consider it brutal beyond all knowledge to attack those who do not take part in the support of armies in the field... even when Total War requires that same commitment due to the logic of industrialized warfare.

Now we live in a post-Total War era: where the weapons are so horrifically capable that those of Mass Destruction must be aimed at population centers as they are the productive capacity of a Nation State. Yet, with all that power, the recent fights in the world have been of the small scale and of a different tone, tenor and type than we have seen in the interim period of the late 19th through the last quarter of the 20th century. We cannot return to those days as they are gone to us in our technical genius. Yet that same technical genius has put into play the most corrosive and destructive type of warfare known to modern man and it is not that of Nation States but individuals and bands of same, fighting without sanction as zealots and warlords. This most abhorrent kind of war we have tried to call 'terrorism' but even those on the political Left admit that 'terrorism' is just a tactic. With that said none dare call this type of war that 'terrorism' is a part of by its proper name.

It isn't because we fear that name. We should be so lucky!

It is because the political class of the 20th century has seen fit to try and divest our societies of their understandings of the nature of war, Nation States and Empires, and so they have decided that the term of 'piracy' deals with ships, booty, parrots, rum and an era long, long gone. Yet they exist not just as 'pirates' but as this thing known as 'terrorism', and they both come under a larger term that describes all this activity that you can read about going at least as far back to the fall of the Old Hittite Empire all the way to Soviet paratroop forces in the 1920's going after a bandit army in the hinterlands. The logic of what to call this category of activity, call it 'piracy' or 'terrorism' or 'bandit armies' or 'barbarian hordes', is known by the activity they do in pursuit of their ends.

If Public War, that thing we do as Nation States with solemnity, votes, declarations and such is what we know and it is the sanctioned use of force to assert the will of a Nation, then what is its opposite?

It is not Total War, that is Public War at its terminal conclusive stance in the system of Nation States.

This other form of warfare is done by individuals, without sanction, without pomp, without accountability, without public assent, without uniforms, without chain of command, without any trappings of establishing a Nation State or at least a State so that we may call them 'rebels' and at least offer them the sanctuary of the civilized rules of war. Those who disdain all of that are the enemies of not just their targets, but of all civilized means as they set themselves up to be judge, jury, executioner and they have no codified stance so they mete out such things at whim.

The term for this is Private War and it is the scourge of mankind as it is the harbinger of civilizations about to collapse or on the brink of same.

The Bronze Age saw this happen and the records are in numerous places with only Ancient Egypt surviving, and then only after losing all of its holdings East of the Sinai and West into the desert and coastal areas of North Africa. The Old Hittites, Assyrians, and Achaean Greek civilizations all fell. Ancient Egypt survived under Ramses III who would defeat the Sea Peoples and secure the coastline of Egypt. The ravages of the Sea People are still in evidence on inscriptions in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Crete and as far west as Gibraltar including Greek colonies in Sicily and the Italian Peninsula. The Linear B alphabet was lost due to this, as was literacy amongst the Greeks. The New Hittites would never establish the depth of power of the Old Hittites and never assemble anything close to the Old Hittite diplomatic archive. Egypt was destabilized and only pushing the Sea People and their land based confederates back to the shores saved the core of Ancient Egypt.

What fell was, of course, Troy, but more importantly the Old Hittite trade web that stretched beyond Egypt to what we now call Ethiopia all the way out to Mesopotamia and perhaps even to China, northeast to Siberia, north to the Baltic Sea and West to modern day France and Gibraltar. Troy was the major trade-hub of goods going from the Black to Mediterranean Seas, and goods going from Asia minor to Europe, and the islands and southern coast of Asia Minor represented a wealth of Hittite affiliates and colonies that plied their trade with the Greeks and Egyptians. They probably used many languages for trade, but only one was kept in baked clay which now has piles of shards in the Eastern Med and can be found scattered across some parts of the Western Med and even along the old Hittite trade routes into Asia: Linear B. Once deciphered Linear B proves out to be Greek and the shards are parts of shopping lists. There are still unmarked piles of shards of Linear B to this day, out in the open, they are that common. When you see a pile a foot deep, and more in the surf in the shoreline and further piles and scattered pieces along trails, you begin to get the idea of just how common shopping lists were and just how often they were used. The vast trade complex at Troy, with the perfect winds and shallow (now silted in harbor that is a field) plus scores of out-buildings, secondary wall, moat... all of that was a trade city of vast wealth that would dry up with the harbor and the moment trade was no longer safe through it. A decade long war to deprive Troy of its satellite support cities worked very well: Troy fell. So did the trade web.

Troy fell to war as we more or less know it, although without civilized refinements it was Public War of the 'attrition' sort.

What came after you can read about in the Odyssey: men on ships going to far shores for wealth, trade goods and even just for food. There is evidence that at least one Old Hittite city depopulated completely with its people set to sea who would then migrate West after ravaging the Eastern Med. After those times of troubles the resettling of all these peoples onto the shores of the Med would lead to new peoples arising (like the Phoenicians) and start to set the basis for much of the later history that would come about because of this set of migrations. What actually set them to motion may be multi-causational: the Lukka people lost their city when they went against their former Hittite allies, the Denyan's were possibly the Israelite Tribe of Dan exiled to ships, a somewhat drier and cooler climate regime changed fertile agricultural zones from where they had been, a plague ravaged the Old Hittite Empire, a number of smaller trade cities on Anatolia suffered from war and invasions, the possibility of earthquakes hitting a major city or a volcano erupting cannot be discounted... what can be said is that when civilized ways collapsed the uncivilized ways of warlords, pirates, brigands and roving peoples began. This may have gone on for as long as 300 years, but the transition from relatively stable City State and Imperial relations to roving Sea Peoples is, perhaps, all of two generations at the starting end. Call it less than 100 years, and probably less than 60 years.

It takes a number of items to bring down a civilized set of interactions between States. Today we have the breakdown of international trade due to absolutely insane forms of spending and borrowing not just in the US but across Europe, Asia as well. Unwilling to pay for government services up front, governments go into debt, money systems become destabilized and when this spreads into the interiors of Nations, then the ability to actually trade based on debt starts to decline, often rapidly. Building magnificent projects or spending huge amounts to 'help the retired' does not mitigate the debt that piles up that is to be paid off: trade suffers as debt is a very hard thing to trade with as its real value is in the negative, not the positive. Today thousands of ocean going freighters are at anchor in parts of Oceania and a 19th century clipper ship delivered goods faster than today's transports because it isn't worth spending the money to go fast. A President wants a railroad system as fast as it was... in the 1920's. Hooking people on government handouts turns them into beggars in their own land, waiting for handouts from the benevolent tyrants who have impoverished them with the very best of intentions. Strife of the Private War kind restarted, with great vigor, as ideological in nature, fostered by the USSR and other 'Red' Nations. Now, that has spilled over into religion and there is a religion on the move: Islam. Just as the Sea People move, so do they, and they bring their culture of strife with them, which gets you strife in your own land. It is not civilized to treat women as property, kill daughters because they dare to seek companionship of someone you do not approve based on religion, and to put forward that your religion will dominate all others and be the only religion on Earth.

Christians had some very nasty wars to go through to finally realize that the God of Reason does not speak in such ways but through persuasion of the mind. Yet that very ability to reason is now put at odds with an age of unreason in finances, debt, services, and a high twisting of what it means to be civilized so as to never criticize one's own degeneracy in not opposing the downfall of it. If we cannot oppose that most degenerate form of war, Private War, in which all Nations are at peril, then how, praytell, can the effete elite ever think about actually paying for the goodies they so dearly want via other people's money? Government is not made because man is 'perfectible' but because we are beings of nature with the flaws of nature within us and the very best we can do to safeguard ourselves from our fellow man is to create accountable governance. If we could be perfected by spending, we long ago would have reached that point and turned into perfect beings. Or at least convinced the poor that they should seek to not need a handout in perpetuity and to help their fellow man by working for what they eat... unfortunately the fruits of one's labor are readily taken by government with ever expanding appetite and power.

Government is built upon the ruins of paradise not because we are evil, but because in Nature and without society, there is no difference between evil and good. When man reverts to Natural Man by conscious design, he becomes that horror able to do anything at whim, including wage war on the rest of mankind. When we are able to reason we stop being amoral animals and become moral creatures who seek society so as to protect one's family, oneself and then those that are agreeable to common ways. All government is self-government, and must start with the individual. When you wish others to pay for your goodness, you are not upholding your part of the bargain: seeking to have government steal from others to 'do good' is an evil act in and of itself as it seeks to allow one to wash oneself of the responsibility to care for their fellow man in common society. That is not a 'noble' cause, even when nobles practice it: it is a degradation of your moral character, by you, because you are afraid to do good. Government is a necessary evil due to our fear of our fellow man turning into a creature of Nature once more against our society. When government is turned by those who do not uphold their compact with the rest of society, then government becomes evil and divorces itself from the role of being accountable defender of society and becomes the tyrannical dictator to society. The only governments ever able to sustain itself on that basis is called an Empire and they don't last long when more than 1% of the population is literate.

Which is why you aren't taught history, or much of anything else of value, and learning math and the natural sciences is demeaned in favor of the ideologically driven 'social sciences' which have no standards they must adhere to. For all that is taught, little is learned, and slowly the wedge of unreason is driven into our society by no longer teaching what civilization rests upon: YOU.

This is a vanity blog as I do have my points of vanity from time to time.

It is not a blog of unreason, unthinking or uncaring: I do my best to tell you what I see, how I see it and why (that part left out by so many) I see it that way.

I send out no negatives on anything save for those with negative behavior, negative attitudes and negative actions. Those that degrade and corrode society deserve criticism, as does their favored means to do so via our government. Yet for problems I bring up I do try to show a positive means out of them, or at least show they are part of the human condition beyond the ability of any government, at any time, to ameliorate because they are part of the Nature of Man. That is the civilized way to do things and to be civilized one must be civil.

Being civil to each other is our duty.

If you lose a civil tongue you are becoming uncivilized and no matter how good that feels at the start, it winds up with all your cherish gone from you as when you are in need you will find the milk of human kindness has run dry for you... because of what you have said and done in life. Screaming and churning your guts in hatred because someone dares to think differently and disagree with you in a civil manner is just the opposite of being civilized.

I have found that when all is in chaos, being a bastion of order gives calm to those around you.

It is not easy nor without cost to be civilized.

It really is cheaper than degrading yourself to let government be civilized for you, however.

Physically and mentally I am better off than I was when I started: this blog has helped me to recover.

Now there is hard work ahead to continue civilization, and I am busy within the limited energy I have.

Posting will be light. My prior posts show much of where we are going and what is needed to get through.

You cannot think your way to survival, you can only do your way to survival.

Now I do as I say.

Say what I mean.

Mean what I do.

QE2 or Titanic?

The question of the Quantative Easing Part 2 being done by the Federal Reserve is the Reserve printing money to buy US Treasuries through 3rd party resellers (like Goldman-Sachs) at a mark-up so as to try and get liquidity into the markets.  To this point in time easy credit policy has not 'stimulated' businesses and the business climate remains unsettled due to government policies being unknown on a day-to-day basis.  Such things like the cost of Healthcare Reform, the Financial Reform bill, and tax policy have all put forward an array of new federal agencies that will, perforce, eat up money and increase regulation while showing very little in return for their work.  Each piece of paperwork needing to be filled out in the private sector to meet some new government program or regulation is time spent not doing something productive.  With the threat of taxes going up, actually keeping a business afloat is a major problem as no one can forecast what taxes will look like even one year down the road.  On top of all of that Social Security is operating deeply in the red, cashing in its Treasury obligations, which takes money from both the federal government via direct payments (FICA and general revenues) and needing to pay for those cashed out Treasuries years before anyone expected them to be cashed out.

Thus the federal government is insolvent: it has burdens that it needs to meet that eat up all available cash and then needs to borrow more money at interest.

It is finding the borrowing climate hard as the economy is in the doldrums, and no one sees how the US can pay for all of its 'entitlements' or even just the few mandatory government functions necessary to run the National government.  There is, actually, cash for the latter, but only if you shed all the 'voluntary' parts of government at the federal level.

With no political willpower to do that, the un-elected Federal Reserve (which will get autonomous powers under the financial reform bill as Congress can no longer to its job) has decided to start buying some Treasuries to help keep things going in the name of liquidity: in order to try and pay for today we are devaluing our dollar in hopes that this will jump-start the economy.  There are, unfortunately, no success stories for that worth mentioning.  Thus this is a failed monetary policy with high-end risks and very few tangible rewards unless the idea is to survive until the next election to be thrown out of office to blame the incoming people for your mess.

Still this idea has its backers on the Right like Ramesh Ponnuru, at National Review Online and he points to others who are backing it under the ideas put forward by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. At one of the sites linked to, at Marco Market Musings is an article by David Beckwith on 08 FEB 2010 that a JMCB article by Larry White discussing this topic (pdf document here).  In that article is an analysis of Brad DeLong's look at Hayek's views on this... following this?  From Ponnuru to Beckwith to White to DeLong, about Hayek!

Right!  Lets take a look at the first summary point of White reviewing DeLong's work (boldface mine unless otherwise noted throughout):

(1) The Hayek-Robbins (“Austrian”) theory of the business cycle did not in fact prescribe a monetary policy of “liquidationism” in the sense of doing nothing to prevent a sharp deflation. Hayek and Robbins did question the wisdom of re-inflating the price level after it had fallen from what they regarded as an unsustainable level (given a fixed gold parity) to a sustainable level. They did denounce, as counterproductive, attempts to bring prosperity through cheap credit. But such warnings against what they regarded as monetary over-expansion did not imply indifference to severe income contraction driven by a shrinking money stock and falling velocity. Hayek’s theory viewed the recession as an unavoidable period of allocative corrections, following an unsustainable boom period driven by credit expansion and characterized by distorted relative prices. General price and income deflation driven by monetary contraction was neither necessary nor desirable for those corrections. Hayek’s monetary policy norm in fact prescribed stabilization of nominal income rather than passivity in the face of its contraction. The germ of truth in Friedman’s and DeLong’s indictments, however, is that Hayek and Robbins themselves failed to push this prescription in the early 1930s when it mattered most.

The 'liquidation' policy was that of putting failing banks to rest via letting them fail in the 1920's.

Things that pop out?

- Re-inflating price levels is questionable: that is trying to get price levels up to a sustainable level after bubble bursts.  In other words don't try to re-inflate the bubble.

- Corrections to money requires some allocative corrections when easy credit has inflated prices.

- The goal is to stabilize nominal income, not prices.

- All of this is done with a fixed gold parity money supply.

The last point is telling, and anyone trying to use Hayek or any other economist from history must review if they are talking about a 'stable' currency (that is gold, precious metal, or other substance backing) or a 'fiat' currency that has no fixed value and has only relative worth over time.  The prescriptions of Hayek for a fixed parity currency do not apply, necessarily, to a non-fixed value currency and any prescriptions for the former cannot be given to the latter as the monetary value of the currency means there is an absolute adjustment level for the fixed value currency and no absolute value to the non-fixed value currency.

With a non-fixed value currency when you attempt to 'stabilize' the currency by pushing bank notes into the system, you get nominal inflation of the currency, meaning it is worth less than it was before the printing of money.  From that inflation and deflation of non-fixed value currency cannot be definitively addressed by monetary policy alone: other adjustments need to be done so as to stabilize the value of the currency so that it has stability.  When more is printed and money is worth less over time, there is increased instability in the markets and pricing adjusts to meet the de-valued currency.

Can government spending on 'work' projects help?  This is point 2 that is examined:

(2) With respect to fiscal policy, the Austrian business cycle theory was silent. Hayek and Robbins did oppose make-work public programs, but they opposed them because they believed that the programs would misdirect scarce resources, not because the programs were financed by public-sector borrowing.

Governments get money via taxation or the printing press.  When money is taken from taxpayers it is not available in the economy to be used in an economic fashion to address the needs of individuals and businesses.  When money is printed the value of it is lessened when it is a non-fixed value currency, which creates additional instability for pricing and valuation of goods, services and income.  Thus government cannot 'stimulate' an economy as it is not utilizing funds in an economically efficient manner.  Non-economically efficient things can be done, yes, but that is a political case not an economic one that needs to be made, especially during times of downturns: they are not a 'cure' for an economic downturn and must meet some other need of the State.

Mr. White then goes on to look at Hayek's theory and monetary policy norm, and its a bit of a long section:

Hayek’s business cycle theory led him to the conclusion that intertemporal price equilibrium is best maintained in a monetary economy by constancy of “the total money stream,” or in Fisherian terms the money stock times its velocity of circulation, MV. Hayek was clear about his policy recommendations: the money stock M should vary to offset changes in the velocity of money V, but should be constant in the absence of changes in V.4 He accordingly lamented the shrinkage of M due to the public’s withdrawing reserve money from banks (as had occurred in 1929-33), referring (Hayek 1937, p. 82) to “that most pernicious feature of our present system: namely that a movement towards more liquid types of money causes an actual decrease in the total supply of money and vice versa.” He declared (1937, p. 84) that the central bank’s duty lay in “offsetting as far as possible the effects of changes in the demand for liquid assets on the total quantity of the circulating medium.”

To stabilize the volume of nominal spending, Hayek (1935, p. 124) urged that “any change in the velocity of circulation would have to be compensated by reciprocal change in the amount of money in circulation if money is to remain neutral toward prices.” Thus Hayek (1933b, pp. 164-65) held that an increased public demand to hold (i.e. to “hoard” or not spend) deposit balances would have undesirable deflationary consequences unless offset by deposit expansion:

Unless the banks create additional credits for investment purposes to the same extent that the holders of deposits have ceased to use them for current expenditure, the effect of such saving is essentially the same as that of hoarding [of base money] and has all the undesirable deflationary consequences attaching to the latter.5

Hayek (1937, p. 93) was as strongly opposed to contraction in nominal income as he was to excessive expansion:

Whether we think that the ideal would be a more or less constant volume of the monetary circulation, or whether we think that this volume should gradually increase at a fairly constant rate as productivity increases, the problem of how to prevent the credit structure in any country from running away in either direction remains the same.

Hayek’s ideal (ibid.) was not a do-nothing monetary policy but “an intelligently regulated international system.”6

Do note that when talking about the 1929-33 banking problems it is with a fixed value currency.  Thus a 'run on the banks' means that the currency is being taken out of circulation.  Thus both M (the amount of money) and V (its movement through the economy) are lowered simultaneously as there is less of it to lend as more of it moves back to the individuals that removed it from the banks.  Shifting some reserves from the vaults and into circulation makes sense with this, so long as it is still a fixed value currency as this is a replenishment of lending stocks.

This is a description of a liquidity problem.

Today there are investors not investing money, and individuals who are paying off debt (a good thing) so as to be more solvent in their daily lives.  There is plenty of money to lend, there are very few people wanting to borrow it.  The borrowing problems are from the instability, and if low cost loans are not an incentive to borrow money at its current value, then how will decreasing the value of it make it attractive to borrow?  In theory, yes because you will pay it off with devalued currency. That devaluation trend will shoot the original investment value to hell in short order: that investment you make in plant, equipment and materials will be worth less tomorrow and you will then have to charge more for what you are doing which causes an inflationary spiral.  Pumping money in to 'prime the pump' makes everything more expensive in the short and long run, and while loans can be 'paid back' your living standard declines unless your wages chase the increases in cost... which also add to the inflationary spiral.

This is the opposite of 'stabilizing' a currency which could only be done with a fixed value currency, and then in relatively small amounts.  With a non-fixed value currency the ability of all that money to have a real world value decreases, thus this is the effect of decreasing the value of M even when increasing the number of notes in circulation.  Worse, still, is if that amount then is not used for borrowing, because borrowers don't see how they can pay it back lacking things like jobs, and if employers don't borrow it because they have no idea what fiscal, monetary, tax, and social policies will do to them in weeks, months and years, then it just sits there without adding to V. 

During a major economic downturn with a non-fixed value currency, that downturn, itself, needs to be corrected for via the simple expedient of letting things continue via the rule of law: that adds stability to the markets as well known processes will continue and assured outcomes are understood.  Doing anything to try and 'prime the pump' with a non-fixed value currency runs the high risk of not encouraging economic growth (due to uncertainty) which means that you do not lower unemployment (via marginal production expansion) and that prices go up because of inflation.  The word coined for this: Stagflation.

And you get that when the government still has some solvency left to it, as was the case in the 1970's.  Today the US government is insolvent, and unable to make its bonds attractive due to the amount of debt and structural costs of government spending on entitlements, the military, and the entire federal bureaucracy that stretches from medication safety to subsidizing sugar producers to paying for entire Departments that can't improve the criteria of what they were made to do one iota, like Education.  That is why the government now has trouble selling bonds: we are overburdened with too much government trying to do too much and it is costing us all dearly.  A non-fixed value currency adds to that by giving an illusion that doing something to loan rates, changing criteria for lending, inflating money supply, indeed a host of things added in since 1911, will actually allow the government to better 'regulate' the economy.  By all of its activity, however, it has done just the opposite.

What will QE2 get us?  Stagflation, at best.

Why? The unsettled economic climate means no one can forecast the economy as those in government try to 'regulate' it from positions unattached to the economy for political reasons.

What is the answer? 

1. Announce a change to a fixed value currency, exchange current notes for gold backed ones on a 10:1 basis so everyone can just move the decimal point one place.  This will require new bills and coins, many struck from gold and silver.  At that point an ounce of gold might be around $100, which sounds about right for fractional quantities.
   
2. Keep 'entitlements' like SSA for those in the system, end it for those not in it, remove the 'retirement age' and admit that 'retiring' is best planned for by individuals not governments.  End FICA and fund the remains directly from tax revenues.  This is a major part of the insolvency problem.
   
3. Remove Medicare/Medicaid by adding them up, dividing by 2 and block granting that to the States and phase it out over 5 years as a payment.  Remove all subsidies for medical care via the tax code.  This is the other major part of the insolvency problem.
   
4. Stop the federal spending by shedding government agencies and functions wholesale and selling off the remains. What the government is actually required to have is short: State, DoD, Commerce, US Coast and Geodetic Survey, a Mint, USPTO for limited duration patents, copyrights and tracking trademarks, and a much downsized IRS.  This gets some liquidity into the system for government to operate and pay off our debts.   This includes the Federal Reserve, Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie, Sallie, SEC and a host of other 'regulatory' agencies that are nothing but political means to meddle in the economy.
   
5. A balanced budget amendment that requires the American People to directly sign off on deficit spending.

Then you can do all the fixed value currency analysis you like.

Yes, this would be wrenching to us, conceptually.  But it would offer firmness of process, an understanding that nothing is 'too big to fail', that the rule of law guides what happens at all points in the economy, that politicians should not try to 'regulate' things they don't understand and then 'fix' their 'regulations' with more ill-founded political beliefs, and that the best people to decide what to do in the economy are those that make it and run it at the lowest level.  Their election to do so was pretty simple: they got a productive job.  Politicians, not so much.

Same planet, different worlds

Reading a recent column by David Ignatius at RealClearPolitics I am struck by something that has begun to change in America due to the Tea Party movement.  It is a strong, very strong, sense that those who once had a great capability to describe the world as it was have not adapted to the world as it is.

The last time I had a similar feeling was at the end of the 1980's and heading into the 1990's.  The collapse of the Soviet Bloc (in general Eastern European Communist regimes) and the final fall of the USSR itself, by dissolving out of existence, then left an entire class of the pundit class at sea.  They were the ones who could only see the USSR lasting at least to 2030 if not longer, and saw no structural problems within the Soviet system or amongst its outlying satellite states.  This was the grim and gruesome crowd that knew we would 'always have the USSR to kick around'.  Mind you, the ever ready CIA agreed with that position, too.

Then came Solidarity and Gorbie and soon the entire edifice was crumbling.  Poland 10 years, Hungary 10 months, Czechoslovakia 10 weeks, Romania 10 days and East Germany 10 hours.  One decade a mighty USSR that is everlasting and a decade later 'where the hell did it get to?'  It was the seemingly impossible snowballing to take out all previous assumptions and constructions with it and those who were hardest hit were minorities... just kidding!  No the hardest hit were the Kremlinologists who had their 'sources' to 'know' what was 'going on' in the Kremlin.  Or at least that small bar off the square near the hotel where the double-agents hung out.  Their credibility went from supremo-maximo, must consult before any decision so as to not get global thermonuclear war over a minor trade dispute, to 'what a bunch of morons'!

You know, the over-educated elite punditry?  Those were the morons.

Really, morons need lessons.

Fast-forward to a massive lending crisis involving a few institutions (Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Citibank) and a huge government over-response (throw tons of cash at everyone, force secret deals, keep the system going!!!) that has made things worse by stifling the market and upsetting the normal rule of law and the course of bankruptcies.  Pulled into that were two automakers that deserved to be taken down a few million notches: GM and Chrysler.  Actually GM is a lending institution (GMAC) that makes cars as a side-show, and the government wanted to get its fingers into GMAC as did the head of GM.  Gotta love that 'government getting into bed with industry' sort of deal that made Mussolini a household name back in the late 1920's early 1930's.

The reaction to all of this has been the sudden appearance of the Tea Party movement, foreshadowed by the Porkbusters movement during the later Bush years.  From 'trimming the pork' and 'finding the waste' to 'Taxed Enough Already' in only a couple of years, going from a concerted group of the interested to involving their friends, relatives and neighbors in a few massive federal bailouts.  Change is in the air and it isn't of the 'hope & change' variety, either.  Thus reading David Ignatius has that ever so eerie feeling of Kremlinologists spouting off about the durability of the USSR, and 'certain ways things will always be done' and, generally, missing the fact that the Eastern Bloc was crumbling wasn't really happening at all, just some 'minor adjustments' to the USSR.  The world could use some minor adjustments like that in Old Europe, which David Ignatius points out. 

What he misses, though, is the entire tone of what needs to be done. Consider these two opening paragraphs and I will highlight the things that really get to me:

WASHINGTON -- At the risk of taking contrarianism to extremes, let me offer this suggestion: The global economy needs a "tea party" movement in Europe to lobby for fiscal conservatism there.

Many "mainstream" analysts deride the tea party agitators as a right-wing fringe group, and in many respects, that label is deserved. I wouldn't want them running the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve.

The last part, first: I don't want eggheads like Little Timmy "The Smartest Guy In The Room Who Can't Figure Out TurboTax" Geithner running the Treasury.  From that experience of the tax code did Lil Timmy figure out the tax code was too damned complex for an egghead like himself?  Nope.  BTW he was in charge of the NY Fed and a major source of our financial problems and regulatory enforcement and pushing for different regulations.  So I would, actually, like someone who has been on the pointy end of the financial system and who can learn their lessons to be the head of the Treasury... and I don't see why we need the Federal Reserve as it is very convenient to politicians and turns out to be quite costly to the people as it makes the exact same mistakes of the 1920's all over again in the 1990's to 2008 era.  Save that we have Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie and a much more massive government presence in markets than it ever had in the 1920's.

But its that first part that really lets me know that a pundit is about to find out that although he is on the same planet as I am, we are living in different worlds.  The code words 'fiscal conservatism' have a definite meaning in DC:  conservatives who want to restrain the growth of government.  They want to manage government growth.  The underlying concept is that they want more government not less of it.  This is conservatism of a Progressive venue in that it never, not once, asks: 'Are all these things government does justified and supportable under the US Constitution?'

These are the folks derided by the Left when they want to 'restrain growth' as the Left claims those are 'cutting government'?  But that is not the case as the responsibilities and costs of what has been done before continue onwards.  What the Left complains about is that government is not growing fast enough for their liking.  This is what happens when Progressives remain unchallenged for decades: they so twist the meaning of words and concepts that black becomes white and they get killed at the next Zebra crossing (as per Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).  Thus not growing is shrinking, growing slowly is stifling and only when there is robust government growth do they complain about the slow rate of government growth.  By casting no growth as 'cuts' the Left 'wins' the important kudos of 'providing more of taxpayers money to non-taxpayers as such swell Congresscritters' Award.

Now the commentariate, the modern day Kremlinologists of the two party system who have 'fiscal conservatives' pegged as slow-growth Republicans are seeing their ideas being left way out on muddy expanses and wondering 'what the hell is that wall of water across the entire horizon?'  That, as was found out in 2004, is a tsunami.  If my feeling on this is right (and I've only had it one other time beyond the USSR era when Bill Gates famously said that '640K was enough for anyone') then that old idea of 'fiscal conservatism' for Europe (i.e. slow growth conservatism) is about to find that the only place that might make sense is inside Europe.  As Mr. Ignatius points out, Europe can no more get a Tea Party together than it can figure out that all these unassimilated Muslims really aren't Europeans.

This concept of 'fiscal conservatives' is cemented in the next paragraph:

But these conservative populists do perform the useful function of focusing American political attention on the need for fiscal responsibility. They make a good point, for example, in arguing that we shouldn't add a major new entitlement program for health care until we've figured out how to pay for the entitlement programs we've already got.

Hell even the NYT/CBS group that had a poll last week understands that a majority of Americans would take a cut in services to reduce spending.  That goes beyond the WaPo/ABC poll and Rasmussen Reports poll where 63% want smaller government.  This is slowly becoming something that isn't about health care but about the current entitlement system which is broken beyond political repair.  This is not old-time Republican 'fiscal conservatism' that is brewing in America, but something that hasn't been around since the 1830's - a disgust for powerful government.  The Tea Partiers are representative of those Americans who not only want 'fiscal conservatism' but to start addressing the entitlement programs we have, and not figure out how to pay for them... just reduce or eliminate them.  Smaller government and fewer services doesn't mean paying for what we have, but reducing the outlays, powers and taxing power of the government simultaneously.

Like I said, I'm getting that Kremlinologist/Bill Gates feeling going on here and it won't be pretty for the indentured servitude party pundits who can't imagine what liberty and freedom are like because they have read their own material for too long.  That feeling of life-time service to a way of thought comes through clearly in the last paragraph:

I wouldn't really wish the tea party movement on anyone, but the Europeans could use some of its passion about fiscal responsibility. And while we're thinking contrarian thoughts, how about a "conspicuous consumer" movement in high-saving Asia to push for greater domestic spending there?

No, he really can't understand the Tea Party movement as his fellow Americans take up the banner of liberty and freedom which clearly states: Don't Tread On Me.

And while we are on authoritarian ideals, why don't we just wish governments would tell people what to do, tax the hell out of them to do it, restrain their liberty and freedom and make them servants to government because government 'knows best'.

So while I'm thinking contrarian thoughts, wouldn't it be great if the punditcrats got out of their cubicles, their cushy brie and chardonnay get togethers, their damned echo chambers and actually went out into neighborhoods and just talked with folks instead of talking at them?  Luckily we have the internet for that.

Yet another thing Bill Gates didn't expect to catch on...

If you could make a science of society

This is cross-posted from The Jacksonian Party.

What would a science of society look like?

This may seem a rather odd question, but it is one that has been knocking around with me for awhile. We talk of liberty, freedom and equality as subjects, things we do, and as objects, things we desire, and yet they must have a positive value to us for us to value them so highly in both regards. What are these things and how does our society allow us to manifest them in the way we do? And just how strong are they? What are their limits?

We have many works that examine these things from the theoretical or hypothetical side, that is as descriptive works, but very few of the empirical sort, that is placing actual numbers and definitions to these things to allow for measurements to be derived. If you do hand-waving and theory then you are working out definitions, but definitions that measure nothing or are relative in nature only, leave little to work with when trying to find out the magnitude of interactions. With that said, measurements and their attached meanings derive from definitions, and so that is the place to start.

From die.net, the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) definition of liberty:

liberty

n 1: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence [syn: autonomy]

2: freedom of choice: "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes"

3: personal freedom from servitude or confinement or oppression

4: leave granted to a sailor or naval officer [syn: shore leave]

5: an act of undue intimacy [syn: familiarity, impropriety, indecorum]

When we think of liberty we most commonly think of 1-3, that concept of being free from servitude or the arbitrary exercise of authority over us, and the ability to use freedom to make choices. Having liberty, then, is the free will exercise of one's ability to choose to do certain activities or think without restraint.

Again from die.net, same source, this on freedom:

freedom

n 1: the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints

2: immunity from an obligation or duty [syn: exemption]

When we have liberty available to us, we are free. When we are not permitted liberty we are not free and are not in a state of freedom.

Once again, same source and die.net to help, this time equality:

equality

n 1: the quality of being the same in quantity or measure or value or status [ant: inequality]

2: a state of being essentially equal or equivalent: "on a par with the best" [syn: equivalence, par]

For us this is the concept of equality within society, of no man having more or less privilege than any other man. Thus our concept of being treated equally under the law is one that we enshrine and when we move from equal treatment we no longer treat individuals as equals.

The base state of man is to have perfect liberty, perfect freedom and perfect equality.

That is the state of man without any restraint upon him, with perfect ability to do anything with impunity save for the direct repercussions of the act itself. In that state all men are equal, save for differences in size, strength and cunning. There are no bonds upon man in this state of being, no holds upon him, no accountability save the direct and immediate sort. In its purest form this is man in the State of Nature and answering only to Natural Law.

Here I will use Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England at the Harvard Law School Library (attributed to Henry of Bratton) as the basic guide for our understanding of Natural Law:

What natural law is.

[019] 21Natural law is defined in many ways. It may first be said to denote a certain
[020] instinctive impulse arising out of animate nature by which individual living things
[021] are led to act in certain ways. Hence it is thus defined: Natural law is that which
[022] nature, that is, God himself, taught all living things. The word ‘quod’ is then in
[023] the accusative case and the word ‘natura’ in the nominative. On the other hand,
[024] it may be said that the word ‘quod’ is in the nominative case, so that the definition
[025] will be this: Natural law is that taught all living things by nature, that is, by
[026] natural instinct. The word ‘natura’ will then be in the ablative case.22 This is what
[027] is meant when we say that our first instinctive impulses are not under our control,
[028] but our second impulses are. That is why, if a matter proceeds only as far as simple
[029] sensual pleasure, not beyond, only a venial sin is committed. But if it proceeds
[030] farther, to the contriving of something, as where one puts into practice what he
[031] has shamefully thought, it will then be called a third impulse and a mortal sin is
[032] committed.23 And note that for the reason that justice is will, taking into account
[033] rational beings only, natural law is impulse, regard being had to

[001] all creatures, rational and irrational. There are some who say that neither will nor
[002] impulse may be called jus, jus naturale or jus gentium, for they exist in [the realm of]
[003] fact; will or impulse are the means by which natural law or justice disclose or manifest
[004] their effect, for virtues and jura exist in the soul.24 This perhaps is said more clearly,
[005] that natural law is a certain due which nature allows to each man. Natural law is also
[006] said to be the most equitable law, since it is said that erring minors are to be restored
[007] in accordance with [natural] equity.25

Mathematically this is the Ground State of Man, although there will be some provisos in that and a few things granted us by the Law of Nature and our inheritance as a species. Those changes, however, are 'built-in' and instinctual, just as the desire for perfect liberty is part of all animals so we, too, have that desire. Thus these things we get from our background and history as a species are part of the Ground State of Man (GSM). A Ground State can have many values, depending on what is measured, but for simplicity's sake we can set that at Zero.

GSM = 0

With the package of being human we get an affinity to form personal bonds and family groups, and yet many animals also have this as instinct, so we cannot say we are special from Nature due to this trait. What we do have is conscious control over the exercise of it, and in that we can say that this adapted behavior (personal bonds) can be exploited as an aptation to other things. A shellfish may not have control over the colors that its shell gains (and many don't) but when a predisposition towards coloration also gains a benefit, that trait is then one that is used as an aptation: it is not there due to survival characteristics, but may help to enhance survival just the same.

To us this personal bond capability that we get via instinct can be used to further our survival beyond what Nature has provided for. That aptation is part of the GSM. Our ability to consciously use it, and as members of homo sapiens sapiens that comes part and parcel of our heritage, is also part of the GSM, although a distinction with a difference that sets us apart from other species. That distinction is neither a plus nor a minus in moving from the GSM, but has been bestowed upon us by Providence from Nature.

When we consciously choose who is our mate, and then when we choose by that decision to restrict our activities towards that mate, we then start doing something different than Nature has provided. While we may have instincts to stop us from doing harm to that mate, that does not stop such things in a sovereign way in Nature: Natural Law over-rides even that bond if the need for survival precludes it. Thus if threatened with death or injury, a being may offer up its mate to fate to survive and while it would instinctually feel loss that is only due to the absence of the mate, not the decision itself. Once we move to actually self-sacrificing for that mate, to preclude not only other pleasures but to withstand pain and even death for that mate to survive, we create something wholly new. This is Bracton on that topic:

What the jus gentium is.

[017] 33The jus gentium is the law which men of all nations use, which falls short of
[018] natural law since that is common to all animate things born on the earth in the
[019] sea or in the air. From it comes the union of man and woman, entered into by the
[020] mutual consent of both, which is called marriage. Mere physical union is [in the
[021] realm] of fact and cannot properly be called jus since it is corporeal and may be
[022] seen;34 all jura are incorporeal and cannot be seen. From that same law there
[023] also35 comes the procreation and rearing of children. The jus gentium is common
[024] to men alone, as religion observed toward God, the duty of submission to parents
[025] and country, or the right to repel violence and injuria. For it is by virtue of this
[026] law that whatever a man does in defence of his own person he is held to do lawfully;
[027] since nature makes us all in a sense akin to one another it follows that for one to
[028] attack another is forbidden.36

What manumission is.

[030] 37Manumissions also come from the jus gentium. Manumission is the giving of
[031] liberty, that is, the revelation of liberty, according to some, for liberty, which
[032] proceeds from the law of

[001] nature, cannot be taken away by the jus gentium but only obscured by it,38 for
[002] natural rights are immutable. But say that he who manumits does properly give
[003] liberty, though he does not give his own but another's, for one may give what he
[004] does not have, as is apparent in the case of a creditor, who [may alienate a pledge
[005] though the thing is not his,39 and in that of one who] constitutes a usufruct in his
[006] property.40 For natural rights are said to be immutable because they cannot be
[007] abrogated or taken away completely, though they may be restricted or diminished
[008] in kind41 or in part. 42It was by virtue of this jus gentium that wars were introduced
[009] (that is, when declared43 by the prince for the defence of his country44 or to repel
[010] an attack) and nations separated, kingdoms established and rights of ownership
[011] distinguished. Individual ownership was not effected de novo by the jus gentium but
[012] existed of old, for in the Old Testament things were already mine and thine, theft
[013] was prohibited45 and it was decreed that one not retain his servant's wages.46 By
[014] the jus gentium boundaries were set to holdings, buildings erected next to one
[015] another, from which cities, boroughs and vills were formed.47 And generally, the
[016] jus gentium is the source of all contracts48 and of many other things. What long
[017] custom is will be explained below.49

This thing we create is the law of nations and the first and greatest hallmark of it is that protection of others and NOT starting a war on one's own. Self-defense of that most basic bond we decide to form is immutable and a positive liberty. To wage war that endangers it on one's own is a negative liberty. Thus we get the next two parts of how we measure things:

1. Positive Liberty of War - Self-Defense which we keep to ourselves as an inborn liberty and right. Thus PL(W) = +1.
2. Negative Liberty of War - The offensive war against others is something that is still within us, but we vest it into society. Thus NL(W) = -1.

We get both of these from the GSM. Each value is your entire liberty in each sub-area.

Thus GSM = PL(W) + NL(W) = 0

This changes our Liberty Index (LIB), that measure of our Liberty with regards to the GSM, which has a neutral value. LIB is therefore the measure of Liberty with respect to the GSM. Each individual will experience Liberty differently, that is part of our nature, yet we each have a maximal amount of Liberty available to us and that maximal amount is absolute: no one gains more than what Nature provides. We may create different venues for expression, but those venues are, themselves, expression of our Liberty available under Natural Law. Thus we may not be able to conceive of ourselves utilizing full Liberty or experiencing it, which is subjective, but that we have it is self-evident with all men being born equal in potential.

Our Individual Liberty: LIB(I) = PL(W) = +1

Our Society's Liberty which is vested in the organ of society we call Government: LIB(G) = NL(W) = -1

For us to be safe from NL(W) we must have society and its organs to govern it, and that allows us the ability to defend ourselves freely using our positive liberty to do so. For this to be done there must be an agreement by ALL individuals in the society to do this, or else we are all put at peril to the individual's whim. Thus we grant freedom to each other to not be fearful of war of man upon man and we, through that vestment of it in society with that negative liberty, increase our positive liberty.

Another division is seen with restraint of actions, and this is also one that divides into a positive and negative liberty.

1. Positive Liberty of Restraint - Self-restraint, the ability to check one's own actions with regards to our fellow man. PL(R) = +1.
2. Negative Liberty of Restraint - Restraining others for our own wishes or to enact our own desires, which harms society. NL(R) = -1

The Negative Liberty of Restraint is handed to society and its organ called government so as to allow it to restrain others that would endanger society. Thus we now have more positive liberty, even if we no longer have perfect freedom:

LIB(I) = PL(W) + PL(R) = +2

LIB(G) = NL(W) + NL(R) = -2

This formulation, while not done with math, is described in a way that we can understand it:

Some writers have so confounded society with government,
as to leave little or no distinction between them;
whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;
the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections,
the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.
The first a patron, the last a punisher.

That from Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and it makes perfect sense when seen as a form of mathematics. In this case the organ of society that holds the LIB(G) is called government, while the rest of society is formed by our cooperative use of LIB(I). When we utilize government to restrain those activities that would cause harm to society, we exercise a positive value of control via our LIB(I) via our civil liberty. Thus the Liberty Index gains a Control Value (CV) that is necessary to keep our negative liberties lent to government via society in check. From that the CV must be strong enough to ensure that we are not put in danger by government that holds our negative liberties. In a perfect world that must be equal:

CV(G) = -1 x LIB(G)

At this point we get this replacement:

CV(G) = -1 x -2 = +2

That is, happily, the LIB(I) and thus we would feel secure.

Now I will step through a thought experiment and apply values as I go.

Our PL(W) is for all forms of self-defense, everything from a spit in the eye to a thermonuclear device. Now let us say that we are uncomfortable with the very high end of that scale and say that such things as war making aircraft, ships, and WMDs are to be restricted from our society as they are just too dangerous for the individual to use. Happily they are so expensive that they are out of the reach of most individuals, even the 'super rich' and thus this is a minor fractional impingement upon our LIB(I). Let us say that this Restriction on War (RS(W)) is a mere tiny fraction of PL(W).

R(W) = 0.01 x PL(W) = 0.01

To do this requires that we must increase the magnitude of NL(R), that is put more Restraint(the (R) value) into the system that is held by government and remove it from PL(R). This must be reflected in the Control Value of Government (CV(G)).

Thus:

PL(W1) = PL(W) - RS(W) = +0.99

NL(R1) = NL(R) - RS(W) = -1.01

CV(G) = -1 x ( NL(W) + NL(R1)) = +2.01

LIB(I) = +1.99

LIB(G) = -2.01

When we want government to do more to restrain our positive liberties, we lose liberty and government gains control power over us. This does not of necessity make society safer as this is a function of control by government on our liberty and freedom and as it is taken away from all individuals society is lessened by that loss. Also, on this scale of liberty measurement, we are now lacking in an amount of personal control commensurate to the differences needed between CV(G) and LIB(I). That is worrying as the restrictions we have coming from government are based on an unsupported control factor from our personal liberty. In short we begin to lack the essential back-up to the control of government which is our positive liberty: there is a liberty deficit equal to that difference or Delta (LIB(DEL)).

LIB(DEL) = CV(G) - LIB(I) = +0.02

That Delta between the necessary control of government and your personal liberty is a meaningful one, as when government restricts your liberty it needs greater control and you are feeling controlled by government. This is also called oppression by authority and such a government is authoritarian. Now for our social good all governments are at least mildly authoritarian so as to help keep order of society within society.

Another area of liberty is economic liberty and it, too, has positive and negative aspects.

1. Positive Liberty of Economy - Your ability to gain by your own hand from your own work through the utilization of freedom to work. PL(E) = +1
2. Negative Liberty of Economy - Your ability to take from others and steal their work or otherwise gain by their work by doing none yourself, the act of taking is not considered positive. NL(E) = -1

The sum of your economic liberty is: GSM = PL(E) + NL(E).

As with the previous forms of liberty, we put the negative form into that organ of society of government to control it.

LIB(I) = PL(W) + PL(R) + PL(E) = +3

LIB(G) = NL(W) + NL(R) + NL(E) = -3

CV(G) = -1 x (NL(W) + NL(R) + NL(E)) = +3

Government utilizes the NL(E) in various ways: tariffs, taxation, duties, imposts, and eminent domain.

If we postulate a case where all government taxation via all means and all governments is 30%, then that is the amount your PL(E) is impacted by government. This is the amount of burdening or restraint upon your personal liberty of economy to run the government. This is, of course, an imperfect postulate, but is useful for demonstration purposes.

R(E) = 0.3 x PL(E) = +0.3

PL(E1) = PL(E) - RS(E) = +0.7

NL(E1) = NL(E) - RS(E) = -1.30

Thus:

LIB(I) = +2.7

LIB(G) = -3.3

CV(G) = +3.3

LIB(DEL) = +0.6

When there is a positive LIB(DEL) > +20% LIB(I) then government is thought of as having more power than the people of society.

When there is a +/- 20% LIB(I) difference a government and its people are in balance.

When there is a negative LIB(DEL) < -20% LIB(I) then government is considered to be subservient to the people in regards to Liberty.

Our CV(G) in the US has, as part of its arrangement, being from the 'consent of the governed'. With that said, the IRS acts as a mandatory agency with its own courts to decide tax issues quite separate from our civil courts, and those courts are rarely reviewed, rarely overturned and act as an arm of government collections. With 'consent of the governed' that LIB(DEL) on the imposition against personal economic liberty is supposed to be moderated, and yet the collections are most coercive and the one place hardest to get an acquittal is tax court. If tax problems were accountable to standard civil courts, then an argument could be made for civil justice, but as it is not that moderating influence vanishes and 'consent of the governed' goes with it. The ability to tax has become a true law unto itself, answerable to no civil justice. That is for the federal side of things, which is a percentage of the RS(E) but a large percent of it, nonetheless.

That RS(E) would be an average across all individuals in society. When we leverage disproportionate taxation, that is change the amount being taxed due to things like income, those who pay less or no taxes do not notice the RS(E) or the LIB(DEL) due to it: the poor don't care much about the full taxation of those who pay taxes.

Inversely those who have great wealth and can shield it via an incremental use of tax gimmicks, hiding income and tax lawyers feel less of a bite than if they had their full share levied upon them. Every exemption that is useful to only the upper portion of those with income lessens their appreciation of the RS(E) and LIB(DEL) via the amount they can shield minus the cost of the shielding. So long as that shielding yields a positive net result, the amount of taxation felt is lessened thus lessening concerns about those who cannot use such techniques to a net positive.

Thus the middle income individuals feel the full brunt of taxation, get only a few 'tax breaks' to mollify them, and have to pick up the load for the poor AND the amount the rich shield from tax collections.  This concept is being used for demonstration purposes, only.

The felt LIB(DEL) is thus changed for those paying taxes. If, say, 30% pay no taxes or no discernable taxes (this is not just income tax but things like sales tax, duties, etc. and is a net 30% as many of the poor do pay taxes, but they are not discernable beyond a modicum, so 30% is an overall net loss from this income bracket) then their LIB(DEL) effectively drops to zero and for those rich who can shield their money, they may only feel, say 80% of the remaining LIB(DEL), thus forcing the remainder LIB(DEL)(REM) to pay the share of the poor:

LIB(DEL)(P) = 0

LIB(DEL)(REM) = LIB(DEL) + 0.3 x LIB(DEL) = 0.78

LIB(DEL)(R) = LIB(DEL)(REM) x 0.8 = 0.624

LIB(DEL)(M) = LIB(DEL)(REM) + (LIB(DEL)(R)-LIB(DEL)(REM)) = 0.78 + (0.624 - 0.78) = 0.936

From this a nominal amount of overall economic liberty delta is not felt by the poor, only just a bit above the nominal average for the rich and predominantly upon the middle class. The rich, by being rich, can get in loopholes into the law via lobbying so as to bring their nominal rate down to near average (and some do pay no income tax but cannot escape other taxes) and the middle class gets the squeeze. In truth the LIB(DEL)(P) is rarely 0 but never reaches an effectively half-average until you get to be un-poor and join the middle class. Even then the lowest part of the middle class has some effects moderated thus shifting burden to the center and upper income earners.

This system works so-so to explain the effects of taxation, but the effects of those who get taxed and feel that they have less control over taxation is for them a much higher amount than average as the tax code favors the poor and the rich, simultaneously although in different ways. Until this point in time all individuals have been considered to share the burden equally, but due to tax policy we can no longer consider that as the case: by favoring some over others government creates inequality in participation and control over the government itself. This is the Equality Quotient (EQQ) which is a measure of the differences in burden from LIB(DEL).

Thus:

EQQ(P) = LIB(DEL) - LIB(DEL)(P) = +0.6 - 0 = +0.6

EQQ(R) = LIB(DEL) - LIB(DEL)(R) = 0.6 - 0.624 = -0.024

EQQ(M) = LIB(DEL) - LIB(DEL)(M) = 0.6 - 0.936 = -0.336

When one has a positive EQQ they are said to be Favored by government (>= 10% LIB(DEL)).

When one has a near zero EQQ they are said to be Neutral with respect to government (+/- 10% of LIB(DEL)).

When one has a negative EQQ they are said to be Disfavored by government (<= -10% of LIB(DEL)) .

As I have pointed out I am exaggerating with respect to the Poor which will change the position of both the Rich and Middle Class in regards to LIB(DEL). That may actually move the EQQ(R) into slightly positive territory and bring the EQQ(M) downwards, but perhaps not into the 10% range of Neutrality. As this is a difference from the Average a smaller variation in a system professing equality has a larger impact than the absolute comparison between LIB(I) and LIB(DEL) used for the absolute case. Still a government can have a rough correlation of power in balance with its society and still have EQQs that demonstrate unequal dispensation of the use of that power.

This examination is of a government that is given only our negative liberties to safeguard so that we may maximize our positive ones. When we put together a government that doesn't do that, we can start to see some major problems in the reduced liberty of the individual.

Examining a society that hands positive liberties to government changes that balance of Liberty, Control and Equality. To postulate, lets start with a position in which all handguns are prohibited, save for those made at home (along with ammunition), and rifles and shotguns are heavily restricted to the general population, and all other firearms are prohibited. With that we would see only a 20% available positive liberty of warfare for self-defense, and probably closer to 10%.

PL(W) = 1 x 0.2 = +0.2

NL(W) = -1 - (1 - PL(W)) = -1.8

Thus:

LIB(I) = +0.2

LIB(G) = -1.8

CV(G) = +1.8

LIB(DEL) = +1.6

To achieve this requires a highly authoritarian government. Compare this with a LIB(DEL) for the simple restriction of WMDs to the individual LIB(DEL) = 0.02, and we see a government that must be 8 times as authoritarian compared to that extremely mild government. In this all individuals are considered to be equal, although if the government preferentially allows one group to be armed, say a ruling group, then the EQQ would be very high between those that govern and those they govern.

To examine a society in which government is not only entrusted with the negative economic liberty, but also the lion's share of the positive, say 90% of the positive liberty, we get the following:

LIB(I) = +0.1

LIB(G) = -1.9

CV(G) = +1.9

LIB(DEL) = +1.8

When postulating a government run economy, one is said to have very little control over government nor personal liberty with respect to government with LIB(I) being a mere 1/18th the canceling amount to feel some security from government for one's liberty. This is very close the minimal case of slavery:

LIB(I) = 0

While having 10% control of one's economic future is better than none, it can in no way said that one control's one's own destiny in that realm. If this case were added to the previous case we would see the following:

LIB(I) = +0.3

LIB(G) = -3.7

CV(G) = +3.7

LIB(DEL) = +3.4

That is beyond authoritarian and what we would call a totalitarian state that dictates your life to you and then ensures that you can in no way defend yourself FROM government.

This has been an interesting thought experiment!

The drawbacks of this system:

1) It deals with the absolute realm of liberty in multiple areas, and then sums them, thus making any fast and easy analysis of a government or society difficult. Each area must be dealt with separately.

2) There are no hard definitions on restraint of positive liberty imposed by government. The cases I give are ones in which I just used numbers to represent approximations of restraints, and I used no hard and fast rules on them. Still that could be done given more time.

3) Subjectively each of us deals with our emotional and mental attitude towards our use of liberty differently. With that said it is very easy to assume that one's subjective approach is universal, which, thusly, puts one at odds with even a slight variation of one's outlook. If a large scale outlook is different, then valuations on restraint and even what positive and negative liberties ARE will change valuations. That is why I went the route of the ENTIRE of each, so that the most expansive view of positive and negative to their furthest limits are the full value of them.

4) Each society, beyond just individuals, will approach the magnitude of restraint of liberty by government differently. In trying to use a common, absolute, evaluation, the concept is to give a level staring point and then allow different societies to state their valuations of each restraint so that a cross-society system could be developed. My analysis is 'rough and ready' used to demonstrate some of the basics of how a system like this works.

5) As a society and individuals we have ignored wanting to put such valuations on our liberty, freedom and even such things as our personality. Yet these are not sacrosanct areas, forbidden to thought and analysis. By sequestering a comparative, objective system that encompasses human liberty from our scope of learning, we still wander in a region where the hypothetical rules and the objective, hard and fast definitions are left outside in the cold. While such analysis may seem cold at first blush, it actually helps to examine differences in societies and puts some order of magnitude understanding on the hypothetical works and allows us to review just what various authors are saying and cross-compare how they approach topics. If you want to get to a science of society and governments, then something like this will be necessary and hand waving and hypothetical cases will need to be made into rigorous postulations with numbers put against them that are clearly explained.

The pluses of this system:

1) Personally I was surprised at how some of the things we talk about in comparing governments and personal liberty immediately stand out. Simply putting numbers on these things we talk about helps to regularize understanding and create a cross-comparative review of not only politics but societal attitudes.

2) The interim numbers generated, like the CV(G) turn out to be interesting indicators of the relative power between society and government. While LIB(I) is for all individuals and collective, so is LIB(G). The examination of that Delta between LIB(I) and the positive control necessary for government to function with its negative liberties (or positive ones taken from individuals) is a highly powerful tool.

3) Even without extreme rigor on definitions there are clear indicators of liberty, freedom and equality quickly stand out. When we talk of government taking part in a large section of our economic lives, not only in the Health Care area but in all other areas that we get regulations put in by government, we can see how even small and incremental changes in the balance of Liberty have extreme impacts in our feeling of enfranchisement and if the government is going authoritarian. Thus an intervention on 16% of the economy would be a huge change in our personal Liberty and the necessary control by government is that we would characterize for authoritarian regimes. Under that view most of Europe is under authoritarian regimes.

4) Being nice to the poor and letting the rich get tax breaks means the middle class gets hit and hard by the authority of government. If we were to add to taxation the other regulations controlling our daily lives, we have probably reached a tipping point between a modicum of balance between the people and government and are now in a realm where authoritarianism is possible. While we know that as an intellectual exercise, when one begins to put numbers to it the actual reality of it sinks in much, much faster.

5) I do not deal with Liberties wholly retained by the people, such as religion. Still, as that is wholly retained by the people, and we are restricted on our negative liberties, that leaves us with talking about it, social exclusion and other means to express ourselves that preclude warfare and repression. ANY action taken by government in that realm is a negative... which is a lesson we have already seen in history. That does INCLUDE stopping historical and societal use of religious terms within government and on such things as our currency: as established they are perfectly allowable and trying to get government to CHANGE that basis is actually asking for favoritism. Yet we still have those that will not let sleeping dogs rest without poking them with a sharp stick.

In no way is this review an actual analytical tool.

It is an examination of what a good analytical tool would do if we had one for this purpose... which we don't.

I've been putting this together in bits and pieces over a few days, so the math may not be rigorous.