Vaccination by Force

"There will be a day when you will wish that you had done a little evil to do a greater good."
--Sybilla (Kingdom of Heaven)

A recent measles outbreak has once again raised the interesting question of the role of government in public health. During the ebola contagion last fall, these pages concluded that government might have legitimate power to quarantine people exposed to a deadly, contagious disease. When an individual is exposed to a deadly disease and then interacts with others understood to have been unable to take reasonable precaution against the disease, then the carrier can be seen as an aggressor.

Quarantining potential carriers, particularly when the mechanism of contagion is not well understood, can be seen as a valid power of government under such circumstances. Government's proper role is to help individuals protect themselves against aggression.

In the midst of the measles outbreak, we now hear outcries for mandatory (i.e., enforced by government) vaccination. While this situation may seem analogous to the ebola case above, it is not. With measles we have a case where the disease and its transmission are well understood. Vaccines against the measles have been available for decades. In fact, by the time vaccines were introduced, mortality from measles had already been drastically reduced:

Because of the broad availability of a vaccine, culpability of measles carriers is unlike the ebola case above, because people have attainable means to "self-defend" against measles infection. It is reasonable to assume that those who value the vaccine will choose to use it.

There is also reason to believe that measles vaccines might be harmful. As discussed here, vaccines might throw autoimmune systems out of balance, leading to allergies and chronic illnesses, particularly in children. As estimated here, 1970s kids like me received about 7 vaccines around the age of five or older. Today, kids receive about 25 vaccines by the age of two. Research seeking to connect vaccines to allergies and illness has been inconclusive although, surprisingly, it appears that basic randomized studies of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations have not been done. (The above graph, of course, suggests that the effect on measles mortality could be insignificant.)

The point is that some people may see vaccines as potentially harmful and not worth the risk. Opting out of the vaccine is a valid choice, as is electing the vaccine. What is not valid is forcing someone else to be vaccinated. Greater Good Accounting is a poor argument here. Public health officials and those seeking to vaccinate people against their wills become the aggressors.

Vaccination by force is analogous to war fought in the name of national security. Both are usually acts of preemptive aggression.

"We" Means "You"

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
--Natasha Bedingfield

These pages have noted it before. In the context of politics, "we" is a euphemism for "you." And the probable application of offensive force to get "you" to acquiesce to some "greater good."

"We" is a euphemism for Sumner's Forgotten Man.

Debt and The Fed

When the walls come tumbin' down
When the walls come crumblin' crumblin'
When the walls come tumblin' tumblin'
Down
--John Mellencamp

I have little doubt that the Federal Reserve, and the modern central banking model in general, will some day be buried in the scrap heap of history. Whether it is placed there or whether it is randomly stratified in the ruble of economic and social collapse is another question.

Rand Paul makes some astute comments about the Fed in a recent screed against the institution. He notes its impact on the US dollar, observing that once upon a time the USD was backed by gold. Then it was backed by the "full faith and credit" of the US government. Now the dollar is "backed by used car loans, bad home loans, distressed assets, and derivatives."

Not to mention $18 trillion in federal debt...

In fact, Paul suggests that "the reason we have the Fed is because we have debt." This is true. A primary objective of the Fed today, one that does not precisely appear on its official list of charges, is to prevent an over-leveraged financial system from collapsing into insolvency.

But the reverse of Paul's suggestion is also true. The reason that we such large debt and leverage today is because of the Fed. Through its monetary policy agenda the Fed has facilitating borrowing far beyond what an unhampered system would permit.

Now we are caught in a vicious reinforcing cycle of more debt and intervention to prevent cataclysmic decline from that debt.

We can proactively reverse this cycle and our debt load by removing the Fed from the picture. Or we can reactively experience the wrath of market forces that, at some point, will no longer tolerate suppression by the Fed.

position in gold

Historic Baltic Dry

It was thirty days around the horn
The captain says its thirty five more
The moon looks mean, the crews ain't staying
There's gonna be some blood
Is what they're all saying
--Jay Ferguson

ZeroHedge reports historic lows in Baltic Dry Index. The BDI is an index of ocean shipping rates.

It is now below the 2008/9 lows and a kitten's whisker away from its all time 1986 lows.

Conspiracy Theory

"A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line."
--Jerry Fletcher (Conspiracy Theory)

Conspiracy theory used to mean a thesis that a group of people secretly collaborated in some way to do something bad. Over time, conspiracy theories have taken on a social stigma and subject to ridicule and dismissal.

As proposed here, conspiracy theory no longer means an event explained by conspiracy. Instead, it means any explanation that is contrary to government or mainstream media explanation. Lies become truth. Fiction becomes fact.

Reason and analysis become conspiracy theory as it challenges consensus grounded in lies.

Scientific Orthodoxy

"You can break a man's skull. You can arrest him. You can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what's up here? How do you fight an idea?
--Sextus (Bun-Hur)

Many salient points made by Judge Nap here, including the observation that in a free society, people are free to reject scientific orthodoxy in favor of unorthodox views. People do so, of course, to their own peril.

There are many who associate scientific findings with finality. But, as Thomas Kuhn and others have observed, science is rarely final. In fact, as support builds for a particular scientific view, it is more likely to become distorted, rigid, and wrong. Unorthodox thinking is required to falsify the dominant coalition's paradigm and further advance what is known.

The state commonly embraces scientific orthodoxy because it is a means of capturing more political power. It should be no surprise that scientists and other intellectuals of the orthodox often partner with government. We have seen this in the realm of climate and recently in the realm of vaccinations. Chances of mischief increase as scientists bend the truth for their statist collaborators.

By endorsing scientific orthodoxy, government uses its coercive power to force it upon those who intellectually reject it. Science becomes a mechanism for one group to force its views on others.

Strong minds do not yield to such coercion.

Money Warehouses

You must have heard the cautionary tales
Of dangers hidden on cul-de-sac trails
From wiser men who've been through it all
And ghosts of failures spray-canned upon the wall
--Pete Townshend

Thesis that we're headed toward a period where people will see value in depositing their cash in what essentially are 'money warehouses.' You would not get paid interest because a warehouse would not speculate with your funds. Instead, you would pay the warehouse for keeping your deposits safe.

You would be on the hook to do your due diligence to make sure that the warehouse was secure to your liking.

This is what banks originally did. Progressively, however, they moved toward today's leveraged, protected model that is the source of much systemic risk and fraud

I do sense entrepreneurial opportunity here.

Interview Pushback

You could have a big dipper
Going up and down, all around the bends
You could have a bumper car, bumping
The amusement never ends
--Peter Gabriel

Nice pushback from Rand Paul against a CNBC interviewer who introduces each of four different topics (forced vaccinations, coporate tax holidays, audit the Fed, and ophthalmologist certifications) with slant and then repeatedly interrupts Paul as he tries to respond.

Paul calmly corrects the interviewer various times on her premises and approach. In his wrap-up comments, Paul says:

"Part of the problem is that you end up having interviews like this where the interview is so slanted and full of distortions that you don't get useful information. I think this is what's bad about TV sometimes so, frankly, I think, if we do this again, you need to start out with a little more objectivity going into the interview."

This, of course, is a fundamental problem with journalists seeking to be 'objective' reporters. They have difficulty checking their biases and consequently report distorted views of events.

Slanted interviewer backdrops discourage me from watching or listening to interviews--and certainly from getting interviewed myself. However, Rand Paul provides a good example of how to navigate the minefield while thoughtfully conveying perspective that many information consumers may find useful.

COLAs

We've got to hold on to what we've got
It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not
--Bon Jovi

Many agreements that include routine payouts, including many transfer payments, include "cost of living adjustments." COLAs are multipliers that, nearly always, increase the payout by estimated cost of living increases. These estimates typically come from the government sponsored change in the 'Consumer Price Index' or CPI.

If the CPI is deemed to increase 3% annually, then a $100 payout that employs CPI-based COLAs  would increase to $103.

The rationale behind COLAs is that payouts need to be revised for higher prices of goods and service over time. Without a COLA, the reasoning goes, a $100 payout buys less over time.

Beyond issues of manipulation to CPI metrics, which seem to elude the awareness of most people, is the widespread belief that prices naturally go higher over time. This is an erroneous assumption. As society becomes more productive, the natural direction of prices is down--not up.

Higher prices are due to aggressive force being applied somewhere in the system. Typically, this force takes the form of a) outright money printing, or b) suppressed interest rates that gradually rob the system of capital necessary for productivity improvement.

In unhampered systems, COLAs would typically revise routine payouts lower.

Billing It Forward

P.J. McNeal: About this five thousand dollars. Where did you get it?
Tillie Wiecek: That is important?
P.J. McNeal: Yes, it's very important. Where he got it--or where YOU got it--might have a lot to do with the case. He might have had it hidden away, or maybe you got it from some mob that's trying to spring him.
Tillie Wiecek: No, no. It's mine. I work. I scrub floors. Eleven years I save every penny. I never miss a day's work. I earn it...every penny.
--Call Northside 777

Occasionally I hear someone recognize the sacrifices that people in previous generations made for the present generation. In economic terms, sacrificing means foregoing something in favor of something else. Economizing.

The greatest economic sacrifices that one generation can make for the next are those which build wealth for the future. By doing so, one generation quite literally pays it forward to the next generation.

A generation can pay it forward in various ways. It can work more and rest less. It can save more and consume less. It can invest part of those savings intelligently in productive capital that the next generation can work with to produce even more wealth.

The present generation is doing little of this. It wants to retire early. It is withdrawing from the workforce in favor of transfer payments. It spends more than it produces in income (no savings). Debt is taken on to subsidize this habit. Policies encourage consumption and debt and discourage savings. Capital for future productivity improvement is consumed.

All of this leads to less wealth, not more, for future generations.

Rather than paying it forward, the present generation is billing it forward.