SovereignLife Freedom Blog

A reader forwarded me some information on a piece of US legislation – boringly entitled the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act” (H.R.2487), or more commonly known as the HIRE act – which could have serious implications for US individuals seeking to open an offshore bank account.

I won’t repeat it all here, but suggest you have a read of the original blog post I was referred to.

My thinking on this is as follows: The primary intent of this bill is to force ‘offshore financial organisations’ to withhold funds and provide information on US clients. In other words, placing yet another burden on offshore banks etc. to comply with onerous regulations when it comes to their US clients.

The most likely consequence of this will be such banks and financial organisations simply refusing to open accounts for US citizens – as it won’t be worth their trouble.

Does this legislation represent to introduction of capital controls? Not in the strict sense – but more a clandestine way of discouraging the movement of funds offshore.

I’ve received a number of emails from concerned readers and members as to the likely effect of this and will say the following: first and foremost, this is just a continuation of totalitarian policy of the US government, which will likely get worse as economic conditions get worse.

Yes, as with Swiss banks right now, most overseas banks will want to stay clear of American clients. So what options remain?

I would imagine that there will still be certain offshore banks that will accept funds – as a result of seeing an opportunity created by other banks who refuse such clients. Of course this will not provide any financial privacy, but it will provide a location of funds outside the USA.

Another more useful option would be to move one’s funds out of the country by purchasing gold bullion. This type of account is currently non-reportable and sending funds overseas to buy such gold is perfectly legal (at present!)

So if I were an American, I’d be moving on this now, and getting my available cash out of the USA by purchasing gold for storage outside the US. Don’t forget, in the current economic climate gold is money.

Ever since I got on to the internet in 1996 I have been “in love” with it – for many, many different reasons. But the most important reason, in my judgement, is how the internet is a tool for freedom.

Before the internet we had to rely on TV and newspapers to tell us the news and what’s going on. Now, in the internet age, we can all see what a miserable job those mediums did in informing us. Why? Because on the net you can read the full spectrum of news and opinion on every imaginable topic.

And no topic is so fascinating as illuminating the ways we get screwed by governments.

It is in this field that the internet excels. It provides an uncensored window to the world of power and corruption. For never let it be forgotten that government is nothing more than a legal protection racket writ large. And much-touted democracy is just sugar coating to help sweeten the bitter pill of submission and servitude.

One organisation feeling the “heat” from governments is WikiLeaks – a brave little outfit that obtains secret and classified documents from various official sources and makes them available to the public.

An interesting report by Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com alerted me to this organisation and also some samples of the sort of information they make available for download – including a CIA report which discloses strategies for ensuring citizens in Western Europe support the Afghan war. It’s fascinating to learn how this particular arm of the US government wants to manipulate public opinion in other countries.

As you can imagine, WikiLeaks is facing serious legal challenges from our imperial “masters” who don’t want us to know such things. So I just want to salute them in their mission to bring transparency in the dealings of those who would deceive and enslave us.

Terrorism is a tactic of war. You can’t have a war on terrorism any more than you can have a war on artillery barrages or cavalry charges … so says Doug Casey in this interesting interview - Make Terrorism Your Friend

President Woodrow Wilson wanted to “make the world safe for democracy” when he went before a joint session of the US Congress on April 2, 1917 to seek a declaration of war against Germany.

Of course US Presidents don’t seek “declarations of war” from Congress any more – so I guess the world was made safer!!

But what did he mean by the term “safe for democracy”? What is so good about democracy? What is democracy?

Personally, I don’t see anything good about democracy – and certainly do not support the notion of making the world “safe” for it. For what is democracy after all, if not a euphemism for mob rule?

Was it not democracy that brought Hitler to power?

Democracy is majority rule. If 60% of the population want to tax 10% of the population at the rate of 90%, then the 10% so targeted have nothing to complain about – because it’s the will of the majority of people.

Democracy cannot be moral. Morality is not determined by the counting of heads. Can it be moral that people vote for a policy that steals money off their neighbours in order to fund their personal choice of lifestyle?

I recall many years ago, in New Zealand, when the Domestic Purposes Benefit was introduced (DPB). This was to be a financial payment made to young unmarried women who had children.

In other words, the majority of New Zealanders voted in a policy where young women could get pregnant then be paid to stay at home (minus any husband), using money collected off other tax payers.

I can tell  you, it wasn’t long before young married couples, those who did not yet have children, were asking questions like, “Why are we paying for other single women to bring up children when we don’t even have children of our own?”

Think of it this way. If say a young woman neighbour of yours was to get pregnant, would you think it moral that she demanded that you support her and her child? And would you think it any more moral if the woman in question instead asked the government to take the money off you (tax) and pay it to her? Would her using a third party (government) to get your money make it more moral?

Of course not. The truth is democracy is simply majority rule, and there is nothing inherently “right” about the majority. However, if such a majority uses its power to abuse any minority (including the minority of one), then such a democracy is nothing more than the application of the idea “might makes right”.

Political democracy turns out to be thuggery in disguise.

But there is another form of democracy in which nobody is abused, where no one is forced to do anything they don’t want to, and where freedom reigns. I’m talking about economic democracy – the voluntary voting that goes on every day in the market place.

The market place is an economic democracy, a haven of freedom in an otherwise unfree world. In this economic democracy you vote with dollars. Every time you spend some, you are voting for whatever you have purchased.

If you buy a BMW car, then you are voting with your dollars for the BMW company. If BMW does a good job and pleases all its voters, then it gets to make a lot of money. If it fails to satisfy its voters, then it will lose money – in lost “votes”.

If you buy a McDonald’s burger, then you are voting for McDonalds – and registering your preference for their burgers over those of another company.

Every time you choose to buy something, or choose not to buy something, you are voting in the democratic market place. You are deciding which companies are profitable and which are not. You are deciding who will be rewarded and who will not.

In an economic democracy you can become rich by gathering the most votes. You can also lose your shirt, should you fail to impress the voters.

Your dollar is as good as any one else’s. The dollar is a dollar, no matter whether it is in the hand of a child, an old woman, a black man, a Chinese woman, a gay nightclub dancer, a Democrat or a Republican. Each dollar carries the same voting power.

When you vote with your dollars you are doing so to get what you actually want. And the good news is, when you exchange your dollars this way, the person selling you the goods or services is also getting exactly what he or she wants. In other words, economic democracy is a win/win situation – unlike political democracy, which is decidedly win/lose – or even lose/lose.

Next time you “vote” by buying anything, consider what you are doing. You are participating in economic democracy. And next time you vote in an election, also consider what you are doing. You are participating in political democracy – where what you get  is bound to be at the expense of someone else, and what you spend (taxes) never gives you what you want.

If you were to go out on the street and take a sampling of public opinion as to the importance of, and nature of, freedom – you would get starkly different responses.

Of course most people, if asked, would say they are in favour of freedom. The trouble starts when you ask people to define freedom. You see freedom means entirely different things to different people. Some people will talk of freedom of speech. Others will talk of freedom from hunger, or fear. Yet others will urge you to take up arms for freedom.

President Obama talks of freedom through security.

We all want freedom, but we are unable to come up with a working definition of it – and hence can never agree on what it is we actually want or support. And in any other realm of human experience such a lack of clear definition would cause utter confusion.

If we couldn’t agree on the precise weight of a kilogram or pound, we’d be in constant arguments with our greengrocer. If we couldn’t agree on the precise speed of 50 mph or 100 km/hour – we’d be taking traffic cops to court over arbitrarily fining us for “speeding”. If we couldn’t agree what a dollar was, then we’d never be able to buy or sell anything.

Clear definitions of terms are essential if we want to get on harmoniously and avoid conflict. But the lack of such a definition for the word freedom is at the root of most of our social problems.

This dilemma was very much on the mind of Andrew J Galambos when he came up with a definition of freedom as follows:

“Freedom is the societal condition that exists when every individual has full (i.e. 100%) control over his own property.”

So far so good. I imagine many readers of this post will find themselves agreeing with that in some way. But others will note that in order to fully appreciate and understand this definition it is further necessary to define property. And Galambos defines it as follows:

“A volitional being’s life and all non-procreative derivatives thereof.”

He went further to identify three types of property:

• Primordial Property: A volitional being’s life
• Primary Property: The intangible forms of property (thoughts, ideas, actions etc.)
• Secondary Property: The tangible forms of property (home, car, iPod etc.)

So, using Galambos’s definition of freedom – for you and me to be free requires that we have 100% control of our actual life (primordial property), our mental creations (primary property), and the stuff we have physically created or purchased from someone else (our secondary property).

Now stop and think for a while what that definition of freedom means in the real world. Apply it to any social, economic or political issue you can think of and see if it doesn’t clarify it enormously.

Here’s a few practical examples:

Is murder acceptable? Obviously not because to take another’s life is to take their primordial property.

Is theft acceptable? No, because it involves taking a person’s primary or secondary property.

Is income tax acceptable? No, because to take money off one person to fund the needs of another is theft – and theft involves taking a person’s property without their consent.

Should drugs be illegal? No, because what you or I decide to put into our own body (our primordial property) is no one else’s business.

You get the idea. And if you have a pet moral issue that perplexes you, then I urge you to clarify it by relating it to these definitions of freedom and property – and see what you come up with.

I read Sic Itur Ad Astra (This is the way to the stars) by Galambos back in 2000, and it was a truly mind-opening experience. Now I’m reliving that mental stimulation by listening to the recently released audio lectures by one of his associates in the 60s and 70s – Jay Snelson – in the V-50 Lectures, and highly recommend them to anyone who truly values freedom.

It’s well known that gold is a hedge against the devaluation of paper money. In fact I’m always impressed by the following statistical proof of that fact.

According to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, since 1935 the US Dollar has lost 93.5% of its value. That means if you had put $100 in the bank in 1935, its purchasing power today would be just $6.50. But if you had simply held gold since that time you wouldn’t have lost any purchasing power at all – as the following illustrates:

In 1935, when an ounce of gold was worth $35, you could buy:

• a top-quality tailored suit for $19.75 – or 0.56 ounces of gold
• a family car for $500 – or 14.3 ounces of gold
• a house for $7,150 – or 204.2 ounces of gold

Today, with gold at $1,060 an ounce:

• that same top-quality, tailored suit costs $600 – or 0.56 ounces of gold
• the family car now costs $15,000 – or 14.2 ounces of gold
• the house averages $181,100 – or 204.6 ounces of gold (average house price from 2008 / gold at 2008 price of $880/ounce)

As you can clearly see, the prices for those items remains virtually the same when expressed in gold rather than paper fiat money. So on that basis alone it’s worth holding physical gold.

But you can also do a lot better – as this critical information on how to leverage gold discloses.

Sometimes a picture can more forcefully tell the truth of a story than words, as this changing map (between 1946 and 2000) of Palestine shows. For an explanation and analysis of this map I recommend reading this commentary by Juan Cole.

I’ve just finished reading an excellent 20 page report entitled The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly – in which the Casey Research team takes a serious look at what we can expect during 2010 and beyond, and present their outlook for the economy.

If you find mainstream reporting of economic events to be contradictory and confusing, and need some solid information and data to give you a clear picture of what’s really happening out there, then I urge you to grab a copy of this report for yourself. It’s well worth the read.

It’s free and available for immediate download HERE.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has some interesting things to say about China’s apparent new-found confidence and assertiveness on the world stage:

Is China’s Politburo Spoiling For a Showdown With America?

Politics is generally polarising. Politicians are generally in it for status and power. It’s hard to find any politician who has a broad grasp of global reality.

I don’t know anything about President Lula of Brazil, but judging by this interesting interview conducted by Haaretz, I’d like to know more.

Brazil Leader Talks Middle East Peace