Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

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kindergarten economics

On profit: One (not the only) definition of profit is that you get back more resources than you spent obtaining a good or service. For example, the calories and protein (and other nutrients) a lion consumes from a kill in excess to the calories, etc. it spends making that kill is its profit. Please note that if a lion does not make a profit it will eventually die of slow starvation.

On money: Money is a medium of exchange used to measure value and facilitate the exchange of goods and services. I could swap an hour of tutoring a kid in economics for five kilos of feta cheese to trade for 10 pounds of gefilte fish to trade for an oil and filter change. Or I can charge $42.00 for an hour of tutoring (plus a little extra to pay my taxes) then pay my mechanic for the oil change and he can use the money as he pleases. Easier and less expensive in time and effort than schlepping all over town delivering fish to one guy and cheese to another. Please note that using money makes things more profitable.

Only one aspect of profit and money are addressed here. Socialists and those who wish to use the state as the sole distributor of goods and services don't get these or at least pretend not to , even though they are so obvious I am sure I come across as simpleminded for rehearsing these ideas. However, these ideas are so basic we forget them, so they are in fact worth rehearsing.

Albert Perez
[email protected]

Re: Strategies for Autonomy

(In a private note to Jim Davidson, I mentioned that his proposal bears some resemblance to J. Neil Schulman's agoras in his novel Alongside Night (1979). — Editor.)

Yes, that is so. Arto Bendiken and I worked with Neil Schulman on his web site project 2009-2010 because Arto was an expert in DruPal which was how Neil wanted his site for Alongside Night. I'm afraid the film did not become a great thing, but perhaps it will be re-made with higher production values at some point. Certainly Kevin Sorbo did his best.

You know, I don't mind if you say so publicly. I think Neil was right in concluding that private networks, with things like "bannering" to show allegiance without exposing oneself, are going to be needed in the coming endarkenment. Twilight has fallen. Full darkness approaches. We are, indeed, alongside night. And yet there is much reason for positive expectations. Systems that are thoroughly corrupt are falling apart and flailing about now.

I do not say that dinosaurs did not eat a lot of mammals in the last years, nor that their death throes were without consequence. But it is clear that the dinosaurs are on their way out.

Nor do I say that the network I've been asked to develop is in any way the be all and end all of private networks. Texas has two great activists, Derrick Broze and John Bush, who have built up the FreedomCells.org network. It is very active in some places. Arkansas has Guardians of Freedom and a states assembly group that seem to be growing. I know of many other networks in many other places, these are just examples.

Gandhi once said that if you look at the long course of human history, tyrants always fail. They want to enslave everyone, and some do enslave some for a time, but always their rule comes to an end. Always. Think of it, Gandhi says. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, noted Edmund Burke, is for good men to do nothing. Or, more specifically, Burke said, "When bad men combine, the good must associate, or they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Many combinations are now developing.

Jim Davidson
[email protected]

Useful web sites

The following sites are useful for studying the US economy:

USdebtclock.org - Besides Federal debt includes, population, size of workforce, number of people paying income tax, etc..

Goldprice.org - tracks changes in price of gold over last 20 years and day to day. Also lists silver price.

Additionally: Typing euro to dollar or Euro to USD in your search will reveal the exchange rate between dollar and euro thus giving you idea of strength of dollar and flow of trade between Eurozone and the US. (Same can be done with other currencies)

Typing wti (or West Texas Intermediary ) bloomberg in your search engine will lead you eventually to the price of oil and gasoline futures.

Typing djia today in search engine will take you to the day's Dow Jones average.

This will give you the raw information of what is going on, not what the talking heads want you to know.

Albert Perez
[email protected]

RE: Napsterama & The Whiskey Hill Singers

Golly, I checked Amazon.com and there it was. That record that would never be re-released, on CD (and even a couple of vinyl LPs!). We live in Great Times (that are also Terrible Times, go figure). https://www.amazon.com/Dave-Guard-Whiskeyhill-Singers/dp/B00005KIXF The CD is from a French company apparently … yes, the world is a strange place. And we are a strange people.

Ken Holder
[email protected]