Phony Experts, Collapse of Centralized Planning, the Inevitable Implosion of Totalitarianism: WE WIN

Welcome to the Front Porch! Lots to talk about---



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Everyday we read about 'surprises to the experts.' You know how phony currency drives out good currency? It's not an idictment of the good currency. The same applies to our counterfeit 'experts' sporting their counterfeit certifications of having been 'educated'. Real expertise, like good currency has become a black market commodity.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-17/michigan-september-consumer-sentiment-index-unexpectedly-decreases-to-66-6.htm


U.S. Consumer Sentiment Index Unexpectedly Declines
www.bloomberg.com
Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly fell in September to a one-year low, a sign Americans will be less inclined to ramp up spending.

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One Natural Law that Guarantees We Will Win

This week we were treated to the yummy convolution of theory and reality. It's the unneeded but welcome validation of:

1. Why current 'experts' are pretenders, phonies, liars
2. The abject inefficacy of 'centralized' planning
3. Why totalitarianism must implode and why, because of laws of nature, WE WILL WIN

Recent discussions on the the Front Porch have centered around our increasing wareness that, once again, freedom and liberty are getting ready to kick the ass of totalitarianism and slavery.

I submit this added proof to the 'practical-minded' amongst us:

There are some MAJOR practical applications to this, one of which flowered before us this week. Let's make that the dessert of this article. First we set the table with the principle we're about to celebrate. Then the main course is the meat and potatoes' familiar examples that we all know well, and with which we're cozy and comfortable. Then comes the triple chocolate mousse!!

Regardless of our ability to perceive or our willingness to acknowledge it, certain universal laws of physics and praxeology (human action and economics)apply. We ignore them at our peril. We seem, particularly, to ignore them after going through a nose-to the-grindstone cycle of respecting those laws and living in accordance to them. The 'reward' of strict respect for nature's principles has been the seed of our own destruction. We become arrogant, fat and lazy. And there we go again...

Let's not call this a law, since there is no built-in inevitability that we are doomed to repeat the sins of elder civilizations. Let's simply refer to it as the 'inclination to slovenliness and greed for unearned power.'

On the other hand, Evil is not so lucky as to have a way out of its own demise. There's a fatal principle in totalitarianism, or 'centralized management' of large numbers of human beings and especially their choices in economic activities, which eventually guarantees its implosion and deposition on the ash heaps of history.

Common sense and experience tell us that the closer we are to a 'problem', the more direct experience, good and bad, we had with dealing with it and its kind, and being accountable and rewarded for our results, the more effective we are at dealing with similar situations. Conversely, the further away we are, the less direct and accountable, the less hand-on experience we have, and the more we rely on third party 'experts' for guidance, the less effective we we will be.

There are many ways to describe this phenomenon. In sports, it's the 'home field advantage.' In war, it's a how a rag-tag bunch of farmers beat the earth's most powerful empire and secured its' freedom: the American Revolution. England's problem: a top heavy monarchy fighting on several dozen fronts, WORLDWIDE, at the same time. Not to mention the sweet arrogance that comes with being powerful. We win.

Totalitarianism is corrupted by the absolute power that corrupts absolutely. And it must fail. It becomes, in addition to arrogant, fat and blind. At some point usually early-on, one of it's first enemies is Truth. It disengages its subjects from truth as best it can, and, part of the fatal flaw, disengages itself from truth in the process. We all know operating from false premises destines us to fail. And we've watched some 'Big Dudes' fall over the past couple hundred years, no?

Before we get to dessert---let's clean our plates. Fast forward from the American Revolution to post WWI Russia and Stalin's five year plans to 'feed', that actually starved, his own people by the millions. For those of us who've emerged from our own state of indoctrinational gas, we know the first thing Stalin did was displace and KILL the farmers of his country, replacing them with useful idiots of the state. Starting to sound familiar?

I have a favorite battle story that illustrates the point about the flaw in the centralized planning concept. I don't know, don't care, if this story is totally accurate. Not interested in arguing the finer points. War gamers can debate the finer points.

US allies' victory at D-Day was not a forgone conclusion. As the story goes, things were not going that great when the first beaches were hit. As things changed, which is a constant in war and life, the Allies' commanders were PRESENT, on the beaches with their men. Simply put they ADJUSTED to what they found and what was happening, keeping their overall mission in mind.

Meanwhile, the defenses were commanded directly from Berlin. No decisions were made without the fuehrer's input and approval. Add to that, he was sleeping at the beginning. The Nazi Army was hamstrung to a game plan that became more and more inapplicable as the Longest Day wore on. We win.

Not to beat a dead horse. But to beat a dead horse, the post WWII Soviet Union became, by all appearances, the secondmost powerful military behemoth in the history of the world. What's more, it was a model of real-world centralization of power, run by real world people (not morons). Of course they were corrupt, elitist thugs. Goes with the territory of omnipotent government. One day the Soviet Union, as we knew it, was gone. A soggy fircracker goes out with more drama. Bad cars, scarce food, no incentive to work or risk, corruption were all part and parcel of the central control's Achilles heel for Russia. Don't let the fellow travelers in the West tell you the USSR fell solely because of desperately trying to keep up in the arm's race. It was the whole enchilada. Remember, the US spent more than they did...

The arrogance, ineffectiveness of top-heavy central planning is not confined to arms races and wars. The same attributes are found in the deaths of icons like GM, industries like the newspaper business, and even the local car dealership being run by spoiled 3rd generation flunkies who hate work and seek redemption in political causes. The difference is, with most businesses, including the business of labor unions, with no access to taxation and regulatory power, they succumb, as they should, to the the natural life-death cycle of business. Oopsie. In a corrupt environment, there just may be an institution, say, the State, ready and willing to 'partner up' for a while with the obsolete entity, until its usefulness to the parasite is no more....

Haaayyyyyyy---look what's coming!! The dessert!!

Thanks for grinding with me through this prose and stuff you already know. Now let's enjoy our triple chocolate mousse!

This week we were treated to the yummy convolution of theory and reality. It's the unneeded but welcome validation of:

1. Why current 'experts' are pretenders, phonies, liars
2. The abject inefficacy of 'centralized' planning
3. Why totalitarianism must implode and why, because of laws of nature, WE WILL WIN

This week, an intially ignored, then mocked, then discounted group of "leaderless" people, with no central planners to tell them what to do, beat the livin' hell out of the 'experts': academicians, media pretenders, and the 2 most powerfully entrenched political sides of the same coin ever to symbolize the worst of the US persona, the Republican and Democratic Parties of the US. These 2 top heavy, solipsistic groups had no chance against folks who were free to respond to current battlefield conditions, market turns, and free to embrace Truth as an ally. The smears, denial, squirming and anguish coming from power centers is palpable, the last writhings of a dying predator. We win.