@ DB
DB: Violence in self-defense is permissible in almost any philosophy. ... Why don't you actually look up what anarchy is.

WD - In your anarchic utopia, who will have access to the most violence? The answer is money power. That is why the idealistic definition of anarchy you proffer is nothing but schoolboy idealism. The result is money power operates totally unopposed. When I describe anarchy, I describe the results, not the schoolboy dream.

As to ancient tribalism, you are describing warlords bound by their limited assets as to how dangerous they were to their neighbors. You want to believe their self description as great humanitarians. Hogwash. I suppose Gingas Khan was a great civilized humanitarian. Puleeeze!

@ DB

So exactly how do you propose settling domestic disputes and keeping foreign powers of our backs? The early American states turned to the Articles of Confederation which allowed agreements with foreign powers like France to help us get the British off our backs. As seperate states, France wouldn't even talk to us. You say that was tantamount to Nazi fascism. Hogwash! You say anarchy will solve everything. Nonsense! Anarchy is the rule of the strongest and most rutheless and so is fascism. When I pose the question as to how we can successfully achieve civility without either extreme, you ignore the question and accuse me of supporting fascism.

You say you want to "organize ... affairs along the lines of natural law and personal human action". Oh really? Enforced by whom? Without common enforcement of that organization you end up with enforcement by the strongest, which is nothing but the rule of the strongest and most rutheless. That does not mean fascism, standing armies and a penal-industrial complex is the only other answer, but you don't want to discuss that.

You may want to return to the wild, wild west but you wouldn't last a week there. Just because we have to arm ourselves to match foreign threats does not mean we have to revert to fascism and become the bankster's own enforcement arm for one world government. Of course you prefer unilateral disarmament. There is a balance to be achieved between anarchy and fascism. It will never be achieved by dreaming of absolutes that will never be realistic. Apparantly you are not as interested in being realistic as you are in creating copy. Thanks for revealing that. Now we know your opinion is worthless.

Reply from The Daily Bell

@ DB=

So exactly how do you propose settling domestic disputes and keeping foreign powers of our backs? The early American states turned to the Articles of Confederation which allowed agreements with foreign powers like France to help us get the British off our backs. As seperate states, France wouldn't even talk to us. You say that was tantamount to Nazi fascism. Hogwash! You say anarchy will solve everything. Nonsense!

DB: Violence in self-defense is permissible in almost any philosophy. And we recommend you read some.

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Anarchy is the rule of the strongest and most rutheless and so is fascism. When I pose the question as to how we can successfully achieve civility without either extreme, you ignore the question and accuse me of supporting fascism.

DB: Why don’t you actually look up what anarchy is.

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You say you want to "organize ... affairs along the lines of natural law and personal human action". Oh really? Enforced by whom?

DB: Read Hayek. There is such a thing as spontaneous organization. It’s been taking place on the Internet for the past 20 years though you haven’t noticed. You are used to taking orders but not everyone has to.

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Without common enforcement of that organization you end up with enforcement by the strongest, which is nothing but the rule of the strongest and most rutheless. That does not mean fascism, standing armies and a penal-industrial complex is the only other answer, but you don't want to discuss that.

DB: It is really almost hopeless but we will try. In clan and tribal societies society there were certainly dominant individuals but history shows us that many such organizations are run jointly by “elders” and that custom and culture is a good deal more important than “ruthless” single individuals.

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You may want to return to the wild, wild west but you wouldn't last a week there. Just because we have to arm ourselves to match foreign threats does not mean we have to revert to fascism and become the bankster's own enforcement arm for one world government.

DB: Why don’t you try reading? The Wild West was a good deal more anarchistic and peaceful than you know – as you have apparently absorbed only the memes presented on American television intended to propagandize you. And they have.

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Of course you prefer unilateral disarmament. There is a balance to be achieved between anarchy and fascism. It will never be achieved by dreaming of absolutes that will never be realistic. Apparantly you are not as interested in being realistic as you are in creating copy. Thanks for revealing that. Now we know your opinion is worthless.

DB: “Unilateral disbarment” to what and whom? Even a cursory study in this Internet era shows us that most of the wars and enemies of the past century (we are speaking of Western history) were phantasmagoria – disturbing dreams of a psychotic elite that needs a permanently militarized society to take order that will lead inevitably to globalism and thence to ever-more efficient genocide. People like you apparently will go gladly – still shouting the glorious slogans of the state.

Try this corrected copy.

@ DB

"You want to make the argument that freedom is useless because Money Power will overwhelm it. You leave no other answer than the state itself, elaborated and expansive. This is your solution to "Money Power." More of it."

If I "wanted to make the argument" I would have done so. Is it really necessary to put words in my mouth to attempt to disquise that you do not answer the questions I posed? Do you really think we're that stupid?

I have stated repeatedly that government has some legitimate functions, namely to keep foreign powers off our backs and to maintain an equitable law and enforcement system and LITTLE, IF ANYTHING, ELSE.

We all agree that government has been co opted by money power to do its bidding. Since money power, in our history, without the constraint of government it had not yet coopted (defacto anarchy) has shown itself to feed off the rest of us, why do you believe anarchy is a solution?

We're waiting.

If history is of no consequence than you are no different than any other purveyor of religion, not interested in any consequences as long as you can convince yourself you are 'being effective' venting nothing but nonsense.

You appear to oppose money power. So do I. When you stoop to answering the questions I posed, maybe we can talk about solutions rather than grousing over ideology. If we don't, we are all lost.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Interesting you use the word "we." Well "we've" been viciously attacked by those that espouse your views. Presumably you take turns.

Anyway, when you scratch the surface, what you and your type REALLY believe is that Hitler "had it right" with fascism, National Socialism was indeed the solution and Jews interfered with the freedom that the Third Reich was about to bestow on each and every German (presumably excluding "Jews"). No. We don't believe "you" who purports to speak for a "we."

These "united States" worked well for decades before a federation, and before a constitution. Murray Rothbard documents it. British statists were shocked and dismayed when they returned to reclaim their colonies.

And there are plenty of other interludes, some hundreds of years, some perhaps thousands, where humans have lived and without your "equitable" law enforcement system and the penal-industrial complex that you no doubt intend to suggest as well. Above all without a standing army to keep non-existent foreign powers "off our backs."

Anarchy is not a solution, by the way. It is a simply a recognition that human beings function best function when their societies leave them alone to organize their affairs along the lines of natural law and personal human action.

Look up these terms, including anarchy, and you will begin to discover what human society looked like a good deal of the time before the current historical horrors of the past few thousands years and especially the past several centuries.

@ DB
"You want to make the argument that freedom is useless because Money Power will overwhelm it. You leave no other answer than the state itself, elaborated and expansive. This is your solution to "Money Power." More of it.

If I "wanted to make the argument" I would have done so. Is it really necessary to put words in my mouth to attempt to disquise that you do not answer the questions I posed? Do you really think we're that stupid?

I have stated repeatedly that government has some legitimate functions, namely to keep foreign powers off our backs and to maintain an equitable law and enforcement system and LITTLE, IF ANYTHING, ELSE. We all agree that government has been co opted by money power to do it bidding. Since money power, in our history, without the constraint of government it had not yet coopted (defacto anarchy) has shown itself to feed off the rest of us, why do you believe anarchy is a solution?

We're waiting.

If history is of no consequence than you are no different than any other perveyor of religion, not interested in any consequences as long as you can convince yourself you are 'being effective' venting nothing but nonsense.

No regulations should ever exist.
The idea of "re-clawing back what was invested under fraudulent promises" does not work, which is what I expect from Hugh Grant (useless ideas). Imagine it is already enacted and try to re-claw, only to find out that the institution is now an empty shell. The funds were moved before you realized it was a fraud. For instance, the social security is a fraud. Do you think you could re-claw anything from social security?

The answer on what should be didn't change, no need to brainstorm for a solution.

-The government must be made busy protecting contract law and taking care of violence. Not making laws, not creating empires, not enhancing social nets.

-This enforcement of contract must go beyond property and freedom, and operate all the way up to killing whoever is violating the contract he signed voluntarily.

-All regulation must be removed.

-No enforcement should be attempted in cases where the suffering side signed the contract without their due diligence, it should be allowed to lose. All cases of stupidity should be explicitly said to be cases of lack of due diligence.

@ DB

So, market regulation will constrain money power? Are you kidding? Did not money power in US history repeatedly dry up credit to create depressions so they could buy up land and other assets for pennies on the dollar? Did not JP Morgan and the Rothschilds behind him thusly create the panic that ushered in the Federal Reserve?

You make a great case for government not having been the answer to money power rape of the rest of us. You are curiously silent about how anarchy historically has done or would do any better. How, exactly, are the financially powerless going to defend themselves from money power in your anarchic utopia?

We all agree that law 'fixed' by money power is a disaster. Is it impossible to make and enforce law that is not 'fixed' by money power? Is not government (at least in the original American version) an attempt to create equality of opportunity irregardless of wealth? Is not anarchy a cry of: 'havoc! Let loose the dogs of money power!'?

Reply from The Daily Bell

Minimal government works. People do not easily give up their freedoms. A certain class of people working within the alternative media want to make the case that the only way to live more freely is to make the state a bulwark of freedom. This is like asking the wolf to protect the lamb. And there is no need. It took a civil war to turn a quasi-libertarian one into an abiding Leviathan. You want to make the argument that freedom is useless because Money Power will overwhelm it. You leave no other answer than the state itself, elaborated and expansive. This is your solution to "Money Power." More of it.

Republic of Berzerkley :)
GOV writes tons of new regulations every year. True, they don't enforce them but, that is a different story.
Hugh Grant came up with the best solution. Since there can never be a law for every situation, make a law that covers the broadest area.
His proposal; If a dealer sells some kind of fraudulent investment to an investor, the investor can "claw back" his money. I'm not stating it perfectly but, you get the idea. It was published several months ago at Hugh Grant's site.
Click to view link

This would bring a lot of self-regulation when a personal loss was lurking behind every deal. The Revenge of the Muppets
Click to view link

here is the problem with the banking and investment industry is just this: nomenclature : change the the words but the meaning still means the same thing screw whoever you can because you paid - off a politician to do so at the expense of an entire economy-people- war- murder-or whatever means neccassary to take what ever little small frys have to invest to gain more to what you already have and cant really use--it is called corruption no matter whatever way you stroke the vocabulary just change the words to make one learn a whole new round of fecal matter-period!!!!

The Republic of Berkeley is COMMUNIST so no great surprise. Unfortunately, my alma mater, UC Davis (in the Republic of Davis) is just a mini-berkeley

DB: He writes about the US Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking and suggests that it should be reinstituted.

BE: Glass-Steagall ... created federal insurance for bank deposits.

BE: Securities issuers and traders were required to release more information, and were subjected to higher transparency standards.

BM: Regulation piled on top of regulation, intervention on top of intervention all to supposedly fix a problem caused by…previous regulation and intervention.

BE: The notion that capital markets could self-regulate was decisively rejected...

BM: Once the original Federal Reserve Act was passed, there was no possibility of self-regulation, meaning market regulation. It is hard to reject as failure something that was not even allowed to play in the game.

DB: Actually, it was the Federal Reserve's illegal overprinting of dollars that led to the stock market crash and subsequent economic contraction.

BM: True, but that it was illegal or legal is irrelevant. Once the 1913 legislation creating the Fed was passed (to the glee of money power, despite not being everything they might have hoped for), abuse by money power was certain (as I know is DB's position). It is wishful thinking to believe any other outcome was possible.

BE: The need for root-and-branch reform was undeniable.

BM: Even those speaking for the system know the truth. They just don't go after the truth. Root-and-branch reform IS the ONLY solution, as Barry Eichengreen notes . So go after the root: End the monopoly on money, banking and credit; end all government support for the banking system; end tax favoritism for one form of currency over another; and allow competition. End the Fed.

The market is the most (and only) capable regulator. All else is favoritism, subject to manipulation by those who pull the strings. Advocates of further regulation are advocates of money power, whether they care to admit it or not. They are doing their fellow travelers a disservice by advocating in this manner.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Good insights. Thanks.

"In the case of Glass-Steagall, one could argue that it did not appreciably "calm" the markets in the 20th century because the problem it was addressing had to do with Fed overprinting of money, probably on purpose to get rid of the gold standard."

One can argue the FED MUST constantly expand the money supply as this is how the debt-based system works. I agree with Simon Johnson in that Banking regulations are needed and I do not see the Central Banks of the world going away soon, at least not on the old earth.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Yes, Seer. You, Ellen Brown et. al. Under Lincoln's watch a million died, but he was a "great" president. FDR prolonged the Depression for a decade, but he really had a good heart. Hitler helped create a world war but he anti-usury and therefore a "wise" man. Black is white. Up is down. Central banks only expand money because it is "debt based." (Presumably Bernanke would NOT print money if the Fed didn't charge interest.) Central banks are actually mechanisms for good if used wisely as they were in pre-war Japan and Nazi Germany, etc. etc.