Outside The Asylum

When I was kicked out of private industry in 2001, and spent the next 7 years either unemployed or in civil service (which I didn't turn out to be suited for, being unable to understand appropriate/inappropriate behavior with public funds due to the autism- I know what I was fired for, but I still don't know WHY that was so wrong to build communities outside of the department on the internet to help me understand and do my job), it felt like a huge piece of my life had been taken away. As of two weeks from now, we'll be paying off the last of the credit card debt from that period (my parents last month purchased the last of our debt on a fee basis rather than an interest basis, and the difference will allow us to pay it off with the tax refund). Arson would have been kinder- we could have gotten help if we were homeless. So don't tell me that bankers aren't just as bad as hostile, invading soldiers when it comes to third world nations. The violence of a layoff o...

When a system fails we need to reexamine our basic assumptions in building the system. Six assumptions we need to reexamine in our economic system are: 1. Cheaper is better 2. Bigger is better 3. Our neighbors mean nothing 4. An anonymous market is good 5. Trade always makes both sides richer 6. Fraud is good

Paul Krugman claims we're heading for Japan's lost decade . I think I agree more though that what we're really hading for is the utter collapse of Capitalism, in other words, Russia's lost half-decade as Dmitry Orlov points out. Good thing I've got that Mormon-and-German-Apostolic-Christian inspired 2 years of food supplies, from my upbringing. It might have been hard as an autistic interested in technology putting up with them in grade school and their 19th century ideas about family values and farming, but in the end, the pain may well be worth it.

First of all- I've got a much wider view of what violence is than most people. I suspect this is because I am autistic, as well as the fact that I have a history of being outside society. So for me to see a layoff, a firing, a foreclosure, an arrest, or taking somebody's children or a portion of their life away, as a violent act, is not unreasonable to me. Seeing somebody come to another country illegally for work, or investing in another country in an exploitive way, is also a violent act. And while I am completely pro-life in most situations, I do see self-defense as at least a valid and legitimate, if not "best way of dealing with the problem" response to hostile intentions. To that end, personally as well as on a social level, I try to hold to St. Augustine of Hippo's original Just War Theory: 1. A just war must be fought on your own territory against a hostile invader. NO FAIR leaving your territory to take revenge on a foreigner who has retreated in good...

Well, once again my Asperger's has led me to social blunderland. Apparently what I consider to be a valid economic and scientific worldview, and what the editor of this blog did, are apparently very different things . Part of this is the fact that I've lost all faith in the US Economy and Government at this point. I am no longer satisfied by the lies I've been told in the past, like the idea that the stock market exists to help companies be profitable and individuals invest in companies . A large part of that is indeed that I am a Technocrat and a distributionist , which I had thought I had made clear, but I guess I didn't make it clear enough that I was coming from an entirely different set of axioms than either the Chicago or Austrian schools. So here's my problem: First of all, no, I don't see human beings as being capable of self-governance in a macroeconomic system. Thus I see a need for any large open market to be STRONGLY regulated to eliminate fra...

It has been pointed out to me that this would be better as a recommendation to the State Council as a resolution A Resolution for the Welfare of Our Members Our nation of the United States of America faces a severe economic crisis. It is to our credit that our Insurance organization has not been affected by this crisis so far, but individual members are feeling the effects, primarily in the loss of breadwinner employment. As health insurance in this country has become tied to employment, the families of members may well be affected by any change in employment. As many have become painfully aware, the extreme premiums required by COBRA continuation often meet or exceed whatever unemployment compensation is allowed by the states, thus families are often given the choice between continuing life-giving coverage and homelessness, upon loss of employment. And even with new employment, health insurance may not resume within the next quarter or at all, depending upon the classification of t...