“Call us traitors. Accuse us of treason. Say we’re quislings and fifth columnists. But don’t forget to mention: We’re also right! Yes – today we stand shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama’s arch-rival, Vladimir Putin. We’ll come back to this in a moment… First, let’s check the latest market moves.
The Dow eased off yesterday. But gold got whacked – WHACKED! – for a $33-an-ounce loss. If gold really is in a bull market (as we believe it is) it is doing a good job of keeping it quiet. Why did gold sell off so much? Maybe it is because of Mr. Putin. Yes, dear reader, when we thought we’d seen everything, along comes a New York Times column from none other than the stony-faced president of Russia.
Yesterday, Putin took the extraordinary action of writing directly to the American people to warn us not to do something stupid. Here’s the key point of Putin’s comments: “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.” But force has proved ineffective and pointless.”
The Law of Reciprocity: Ineffective and pointless? Here, dear reader, we will let you in on the deepest insight we have ever had. It is so profound we need a powerful flashlight to find it in the darkest spaces of inner Earth. And then we stop dead in our tracks… our mouth wide open… in admiration and silent awe.
We started thinking about it years ago, as we pondered why and how our financial system had gotten so rotten and so corrupt. No kidding. Today’s financial system… and today’s US foreign policy… are both reacting to the same sour perversion. You’re probably reeling. We are. It is what happens when you find a piece of the puzzle and are finally able to put it in place.
Roughly 5,000 years ago, mankind made a giant leap forward, from barbarity to civilization. This was a big change. It allowed people to (1) live together even if they didn’t especially trust or like each other and (2) truck with other people they didn’t know… Pre-civilized people had no prohibition on killing one another. Sometimes, they ate each other too. And they had a hard time doing business with one another. First, because they were almost always trying to kill each other. Second, because they had no easy way to work out an exchange. But then, along with sedentary agriculture and far-ranging commerce, came a new rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Otherwise known as the Law of Reciprocity, it is the underlying rule governing human affairs. “You don’t kill me… and I won’t kill you.” “You don’t steal my stuff and I won’t steal your stuff.” Simple enough.
It is also why Vladimir Putin is right. Brute force doesn’t work. Because it breaks the fundamental rule of civilized foreign policy: You don’t invade my country and I won’t invade yours. The rule is often broken. But rarely with happy consequences. “Live by the sword; die by the sword,” says the Bible. More importantly, brute force doesn’t take you where you want to go. Except for self-protection, brute force doesn’t work in any aspect of life.
A New Kind of Money: Which brings us to the Fed… and the US dollar. The other major breakthrough of 5,000 years ago was the introduction of a new kind of money. This was money you could trust. Not a promise by someone to give you his wife’s sister. Not a threat against him and his family. Not a credit against next year’s hunt… or the hope that his tribe will come to your aid if you are attacked by a third tribe.
No, this new “money” was something different. It was something you could count on. It made it easy to settle a transaction right on the spot. No need to remember who owed what to whom. No need to speak the same language or worship the same gods. This new “money” was worth something in itself. This new money was gold.
Gold helped cooperation triumph over brute force. With it, you could bargain for goods and services, rather than insisting on them. You didn’t have to take your neighbor’s wheat field by force to feed your family. You could buy his wheat. You didn’t have to drag off his daughter, either; you could pay for her too.
Force doesn’t work in human affairs, because it doesn’t bring people what they really want. Force doesn’t give you a “win-win” trade. Instead, force sets up a “win-lose” transaction. A man robs a liquor store. He has booze. But the liquor-store window is broken, and the store’s insurance rates go up. The world is poorer as a result.
Force rarely works in domestic affairs, either. A woman coerced is rarely a happy woman. And an unhappy woman rarely makes a man happy for long. Nor does force work in an economy. When the Fed forces interest rates down, it is driving buyers and sellers to do something that they otherwise would not do. It is exercising brute force on markets. Does it work? Ask any jackass who has ever tried price controls or centralized economic planning. The answer is no. Why doesn’t it work? For the same reason attacking Syria doesn’t work.
Primitive and Barbaric: Brute force is primitive and barbaric. It brings the attacker, the rapist, the price controller and the central banker a momentary satisfaction and celebrity. But it is a losing proposition. People don’t get what they really want; they get what someone else wants them to have. And since all value is measured by what people really want and freely choose, it makes the world poorer.
Why would the US do things that make the world worse off? Dear reader, where have you been? It’s got nothing to do with liberal or conservative, hawk or dove, Democrat or Republican, Bush or Obama. And it’s not because we are dumber than we used to be, either. Instead, thinking people are starting to realize that we’re right about this too. America is a victim of creeping zombieism.
Bureaucrats at the Fed force down interest rates to support zombies everywhere – from Wall Street to Skid Row. Low rates also help make more money available to the zombies who are besieging the Pentagon. Here’s journalist and author Leon Hadar at the American Conservative:
“There is nothing new about the notion of political corruption in Washington. What is new – and actually quite astounding – is how big, how ugly, and, yes, how outright corrupt it has all become, especially when it comes to the amount of money passed between politicians and lobbyists every day. What was once done behind closed doors, thanks to a sense of shame, is now regarded as legitimate, if not respectable…
An “insular Beltway elite” has been driving the push for military intervention in Syria at a time when public opinion polls make it clear that a large majority of Americans are opposed. Think about the ways our involvement in the Middle East and the so-called war on terror have helped advance the careers of government officials through bigger budgets, new departments, and more exposure and influence. Not to mention how these crises have enriched outside contractors and businesses, sent war correspondents to new assignments, and opened new avenues for TV face time and think-tank fellowships for the experts.
Let’s not forget the huge advances policymakers and their aides receive to write their memoirs describing how they saved America, Western civilization and the world, and how such high-stress experience qualifies them for corporate boards and speaking engagements at all the best investment banks.
The good news is that even if you actually messed things up by leading us into a disastrous war in Iraq, or wrote columns predicting that said war would be a great success, your friends in this town have a tendency to forgive and forget. Don’t worry. You’ll still receive those big consulting contracts, be invited to appear as an analyst on cable news shows, or get to write columns for our leading newspapers. Someone else will pay for the mistakes you made in Iraq, and those you’re trying to make in Syria.”
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