A response to an article in The Straits Times

I wrote an e-mail to the author of a straits times article:

Dear Hui Yee,

I refer to your article "When Free Markets Fail" on The Straits Times dated May 25, 2011. The article argues that free markets are not fail-safe, and active government intervention can forestall a global economic collapse.

In fact, from the Austrian School of Economics' point of view, it is totally the opposite.

The US hasn't had free markets for decades. How can one call the US a free market when the Federal Reserve is manipulating the interest rates, and the governments intervene whenever they have the chance to do so?

The 2007 sub-prime crisis has its roots in around 2000. Back then, the dot-com bubble has just burst, and President Bush and Greenspan, not wanting a recession which will cure the imbalances, injected tons of paper money into the system. Interest rates were lowered to 1%. The market is flooded with cheap money. The result is that people used this money for speculative purposes, such as the housing market. 

An economy can only be healthy if sound money is being used. And sound money means letting market forces determine the all-so-important interest rate. Sound money does not mean having a central bank and a small group of men trying to set interest rate for the whole economy.

Concurrently, Freddie and Fannie were created. These government organisations backed the mortgages. With these government guarantees, who wouldn't want a piece of the action in the housing market? 

Free market capitalism only works if greed is being balanced by fear. The government removes all these fear with those institutions that they created. Without these institutions, the population wouldn't have allowed such wild speculations to go on! The bankers won't dare to bet so heavily on housing. The depositors won't allow bankers to gamble with their money. But the government created this moral hazard, which effectively removes the natural checks and balances that the market provides. Nowadays, I bet people spend more time researching on the camera that they are buying, instead of the balance sheets of the banks that they are going to put their live savings in. Why? Because government guarantees the deposits. But where do government get their resources from? By printing money, in most cases.

I hope that some of these arguments can dispel the myth that free market has been at work in our world. We haven't have free markets at all - far from it.

Thank you for your time. I would be glad to get a reply from you.

Have a nice day.

Regards,

Jin

Some musings

I started studying monetary history after graduating from NUS (I'm sorry to say this but I wasted 4 yrs of my time and money there learning nonsense). What I learnt is something profound, something distasteful and disgusting.

When I first started, I could see right away the MAIN source of the illnesses in our world today. Smaller and smaller families, dual-income families, rising poverty, rising income-gap, rising education and healthcare costs, rising costs of living, rising housing costs, wars..... And the souce of all these is the Central Banking System. The Fractional Reserve Banking System complements the Central Banking System nicely. They are both good friends to each other.

I couldn't keep this knowledge to myself, hence I started this blog. I knew not many will read it, and I didn't actively promote it, but heck, I just need to vent my thoughts somewhere. Some good friends of mine bothered to read my humble opinions though, and I am grateful for that.

While I think gold and silver and commodities are the best protection against the craziness of the world right now, I am by no means advocating it as a get-rich scheme (although you can get rich investing in commodities :D ). Some of my friends thought that I am too free, too conspiracist in my thinking, but I am glad that some of them bothered to do some research, and came to the same conclusions.

We live in this world thinking that things are always the way it is, but it is most certainly not! Do not believe what the economics professors teach in school! The current fiat monetary system is only 40 years old, and I think the end is near. I am not saying the world is DOOMED. Just saying this current monetary system will end somehow.

ANYWAY, here are some nice quotes I have gathered through the course of my study:


"A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank." — Ron Paul, the only politician in the world whom I support

“I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank…You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, I will rout you out.” - Andrew Jackson,  the first and only President in U.S. history to pay off the National Debt. He fought valiantly to close down the 2nd Central Bank of the USA.

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company

“Those few who can understand the system (check book money and credit) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on it favors, that there will be little opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.” - The Rothschilds of London

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and one of the Founding Fathers of the USA

The Source of Inflation

This is an excellent article, with ample examples and statistics:

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=15246

US debt bomb

Poor Ah ma

A few nights ago, I was rushing to the bus stop to catch a bus home. It was around 10.10pm, and I had just finished my last tuition lesson. Missing the bus would be bad, because I would have to wait for 20mins for the next bus. 

I saw the bus approaching, and I was still some distance away from the bus stop when an old lady stopped me. She had been eye-ing me for a few seconds. With a croaking voice, she asked for $1 so that she can buy a bread from a nearby vending machine. Hastily, I reached into my pocket, and could only produce 40 cents. I told her I have no more coins, and rushed off just in time to board the bus. 

I regretted my action. On my way home, this incident dominated my mind. I am angry and disappointed with 2 things. 

The first concerns myself. I am in too much of a hurry to live life, to earn money, to save time. I could have taken out my $10 bill for the lady. It doesn't matter if I missed the bus. I could have chatted with her for 20 mins. But maybe I have been so used to giving donations in coins, and giving in notes just didn't cross my mind at that point in time. 

Secondly, why is she in such a sorry plight? I'm sure there are thousands of people like her living in Singapore right now. People paint such a great picture of this prosperous country, but beneath the surface, a lot of people are struggling. This has got to do with the current monetary system that the world practices. It does nothing but punish the working class and the uninformed. Absolutely nothing but this!

I wish I can change the world. But I do not have the power to do so. All I can do is to help as many people as I can. And at least, try to reach out to people with Austrian Economics. I am interested in setting up a school to teach these kind of stuff. A school which teaches economic freedom, civil liberty, and the limited roles that governments around the world should play in our lives. 

And most certainly, my school will teach that the world will be a much better place without central banks. This central banking system aggregates too much power in the hands of too few people. It is open to abuse and it has been going on for more than a century. People are not outraged because the effects are not that obvious. But slowly and surely, they're creeping up on them. And even if people are outraged and revolt, they often miss the point. This problem will persist if they cannot see the root cause.

No Central banks means less government, less wars, less poverty, and more liberty for everyone.

As I update this blog, silver has hit $33-34. The dip to $27 has been fully bought into. I bought some during the dip but wish I have bought more. Gold is above $1,400. Oil is $108 a barrel. Food inflation is everywhere. The Middle East is in revolt. This is the effect of the unprecedented global money printing in the 2008 economic crisis. This is just the beginning. It is just going to get worse, especially in Western countries.

.

US Debt Ceiling

The Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and many economists were saying that if the US doesn't raise the debt ceiling, they are going to default, and it will be catastrophic for the US and the world. (They have raised it, what, 6 times in 3 years?)

To me, this is an official admission that the US is running a Ponzi Scheme. The world has to loan them money or else they will default. 

The end is near for them. Ponzi Schemes always end!

Chinese rate hikes. Passports. Economic Freedom and Civil Liberty

China has been raising interest rates a few times this year. This may be aimed at curbing inflation, because according to their figures, inflation has been rising at the fastest rate in 2 years. While credit has to be given that they are trying to do something about the inflation, I doubt that it will be so effective.

China raises rates but the US is not doing so. This will cause more foreign currency inflow into China to take advantage of the interest rate difference. The Chinese will then be 'forced' (well, they don't have to, but politicians don't know much) to increase their money supply in order not to let their currency appreciate too much. This will cause even more inflation in China. More RMB, higher prices.

What the Chinese should do in conjuction with raising interest rate is to let their currency appreciate. This means that they have to stop printing money! I've read somewhere that China prints US$ 250 billion worth of RMB annually. Which is not good of course. Stop increasing the supply of RMB, and prices in terms of RMB can be controlled. It doesn't matter how much 'hot money' flows into China. There WON'T be inflation if there's no RMB printing. Prices can't rise in terms of RMB if RMB money supply doesn't expand. Also, they should allow the RMB to be traded more freely internationally, otherwise all those RMB is been trapped in China and is causing price increases.

Keynesian Economics should not be taught in schools. Modern economics is a study of how to STEAL from the population. And theft should not be taught in schools. My hope is that one day the world will embrace Austrian Economics. I am not  hopeful that the governments will be the catalyst of this change. Well, maybe they will be, in a way, because they will screw things up so badly that the people will revolt. Austrian Economics preaches economic freedom, something which is sorely lacking in our world today. 

Just the other day on Christmas Eve, I was returning from Malaysia to Singapore. I got stuck at the Woodlands Checkpoint for 2 hours! There were throngs of immigrants and huge amount of hours wasted. In my opinion, passports do nothing but waste resources - time and money. Imagine the millions of man-hours lost at the checkpoints around the world annually. We could have used hundreds of thousands of man-hours, if not millions of hours, to breed fishes and distribute them to the poor and hungry around the world.

One may argue that without passports, there will be a huge influx of immigrants into Singapore, overcrowding an already overcrowded city. That may happen. But what about immigrants out of Singapore? If immigration is easier, people will move out too. There is only so much humans that can be crowded into this island. This wasn't a problem in the past in a passport-less world. I am not sure if it will be a problem now. In every society, there was a limit to how much population the land can support. A natural equilibrium should be reached.

One may argue that passports discourage crime. While I do agree that it does help to some extent, but I feel that the benefit is so minimal given the costs. You spend so much time and money just to prevent a few crimes. There has been research which shows that IDs do not help to prevent crimes or track criminals. 

I love Ron Paul's quote: "Governments are supposed to protect the secrecy of the people, not the secrecy of governments." 

Politicians just love to have control. They need it to further their political agendas and their careers.

If the governments really are so keen in tracking criminals, I have a better suggestion. Issue a barcode to each and every one in the population. To pass through a checkpoint, the immigrant just needs to scan his own barcode, much like how those barcode scans in the supermarkets operate. This will make immigration so much more pleasant, and save so much resources. How about not using any passport or this barcode at all? How about using those saved resources to hire private tracking companies? I am sure without this passport system, private investigative companies that track criminals will flourish.

Why aren't governments doing this on a large scale? Well, I think it is inertia, like Jim Rogers once mentioned in his book. The world just simply adopted the passport system that the British started to use on a large scale during the colonial periods. Before that, the world did fine without passports anyway. In fact, today there are still agreements between certain countries that travellers do not require passports to pass their borders. (Keynesians probably won't like my idea because they will say it destroys jobs - but this argument is invalid. Ah well, that's another topic of discussion)

I like to 'downscale' large issues down to an individual family unit. This helps us to understand things better. When a family is in debt, they need to work harder and save more, not borrow more and spend more (like the Western countries). 

And you will not want your parents to track every single thing you do, you do not want them to monitor which streets you pass through, which malls you visit everytime you go out to chill. You prefer to be left alone to do your own things. 

Why then do people allow their governments to track and monitor them? Why allow them to decide what you can or cannot do? Allow them to decide where you can or cannot go? Why allow them to dictate economic policies? Do they really know much more than us? Are our overlords so much smarter than the rest of the population, that they can know what the ideal interest rate is, which industry will be great, which form of energy is the wave of the future? People will argue that this gives a more stable society, but I think the free market can do a much better job. We do not have a stable world today, with all the business cycles and such.

Have sound money and free market capitalism. That's what will give us economic and individual liberty and stability. When a government fails, the entire nation suffers. When an entrepreneur fails, the damages are limited. Entrepreneurs (and thus the market) are much better judges of which businesses are viable. They spend their time, effort and risk their money for their ventures. Politicians, on the other hand, just need to write legislations and pass laws and then sit back and feel good about themselves.

To end this post:

Republics generally do not last 200 years. They all fail because of implosion of their finances. They self-destruct from within. Economic freedom and civil liberty can prevent this. Central planning and controls and regulations will not work in the long run. The politicians perpetuate the problems, and the population do not wake up until it is too late. This is pretty much what is happening in the US right now.

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone. Wish you more wealth and better health in 2011.