Pro Commerce

Envy of the Rich is the Core of the American Left

I have to tell you that I neither have envy for the rich, including the really rich, nor do I think they have political power.   The core thinking of the Left is the idea that the distance between the rich and poor is unjust.  

I have personally never had that view.  Early on it was for one reason; later in my life I added another reason.

The first reason I don’t envy the rich is that I made choices in my life to make me as free and powerful as any human.  So I never had any reason to envy the rich or the very rich.  I became a simple liver, meaning I learned to live on the minimum expense, so that I could provide for all my desires with little effort.  I am also an American surrounded by boundless abundance.

I had salaried jobs until I was 30 but I was always my own boss and used my time to accomplish whatever were my own goals and fantasies.  I can see that someone who thinks of earning money for stability and market rewards can envy those who appear to have no worries about stability and market rewards, nea ‘the rich.’ A fulltime job can be the shackles that create envy. An IRA, pension or a mortgage can create envy of the ‘rich.’

I had that stability and access to nearly all market rewards with simple living. I even wrote a book called Simple Living; Investments for Old Age for those who worry about stability in later life.

I have one child and one grandchild who have adopted my views of life and gather unto themselves all the skills and attributes that make them free and functional in the world. That includes having many friends, because your friends are your true wealth.

Has it worked?  Absolutely. 

I have traveled the world, lived in Japan and Israel when I wanted to, known hundreds, maybe thousands of important and influential people, accomplished major world-changing feats including creating the first worldwide currency, Mastercard, and woke up every day free to fulfill every wish and desire and be wildly joyous.  Never envying anyone.

The second discovery: political power does not come from being rich. Not at all. I learned this from being in politics for much of my life.  Many rich people try to buy political influence.  Nearly all fail.  Many have run for political office spending vast fortunes and gotten nowhere.  The only people who wield political power and political influence are those who deeply know politics.  Having money is irrelevant; I am serious.  For money objectives there are monied counter-objectives.  Knowing and understanding how politics works is the ultimate tool to influence politics. Willie Brown, who was poor as a young man and is a simple liver as an old man, has molded political power in California and nationally at a level few others have ever achieved or conceived.   Willie used money but it was not his own money.

Bill Gates’ global foundation is a farce.  It has accomplished nothing in any domain with Croesus levels of spending.  I know because I traveled the world examining Foreign Do Good Investments and found the ratio of good projects to harmful projects to be 1 to 30.  Free market practices did orders of magnitude more good than aid grants. And a fraction of the harm.

Summary

Envy of the rich comes from two sources.  People who don’t know how to live free with the abundance around them.  The fallacious belief that wealth is somehow connected to power. Political power is political understanding.

One caveat.  I would love to have my own private jet for travel. There is a little envy about that.  I’ve been a private pilot since my early 20's so I know that the time involved in flying any plane is great and requires a paid pilot. I now pay for business class and fly on the commercial 30-50 seat planes when I can.

Civil War Problem

I agree with many people that we have the right emotional conditions for a civil war.

Personally, there are many times in the past 5 years I would have gone out with a rifle and pistol to shoot the ‘woke’ media and government people.

Elon Musk and others are right; we have been ripe for a civil war for many years.

I didn’t go out and shoot people because I could never find the right person or place to shoot that would start the civil war.

The actual American Civil War had a geographic point of origin.

“The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina.” 

The public attitudes were geographically divided into many Northern and nearly all Southern states.  No such distinct geographic division exists today between the ‘woke’ and the anti-woke. Even the core of cities versus the rest of the nation is a poor division of ‘woke’ and anti-woke.

At one time I was tempted to call on my fellow patriots to meet at the newest federal government building on Mission St. in San Francisco and begin shooting anyone who went in or out.  But that would have killed many of my own compatriots.  It wouldn’t have worked.

The new civil war can not begin until most people on each side are geographically separated.

Who Can You Trust?

The Internet has changed our world in the most fundamental fashion.  We no longer have trust in any of the large cacophony of information that we receive. The most authoritative sources are widely distrusted.  My son calls this the ‘collapse of narrative.’

How can you trust anything when contradictory information is just a click away and virtually every institution has offered unreliable information at some recent moment?   You can’t.

I want to offer my own approach.  You have to have yours too.

First off, I trust no information I get.  I even doubt some of the things I see with my own eyes in the solid world around me.  What appears solid may not be; what appears safe may not be like trying to run across one side of a freeway with few cars on it.  I have no trust in any government source, or news media or professional association. Any argument by authority is almost always rejected; such as ‘scientists find,’ or ‘the Dental Association says.’

So how do I get a sense that any particular information is reliable? 

I trust some people because they either can-not make false statements or are leery of making statements that they are not certain of.  In the first group are nearly all Japanese, 120 million of them. They can obfuscate but they can not lie.

Who Can You Trust?

I trust data where I can see the original source, where it has not been modified, where I know the collection methodology and where I can do the calculations myself, such as the average, the variance and the sequence over time.  I have been a statistician since I taught it in university.

The same applies to all documents.  I learned at the U. of Chicago to always read the original document or to be leery if it is not available.

I trust some people who are public figures or writers if they have been totally reliable over long periods of time.

We have now reached the end of my trusted sources.  Sadly, it is a new world with a complete absence of authority, anywhere.  

Neither Wikipedia nor Google search is authoritative. In both I’ve seen pieces that were factually very wrong based on my personal experience.  In the case of Wikipedia I’ve corrected major errors and included reliable reference sources only to see my corrections disappear a day or two later.

In the New Revolution, Teach Commerce

The revolution in higher education is coming.  There will soon be several new and very high quality universities that will protect and appreciate Jews.  It will be important to teach the realities of commerce.

There is no such thing as ‘capitalism.’ There is only ‘commerce.’ ‘Capitalism’ is a term that comes from Karl Marx who had an erroneous theory of labor as the source of prices.  Simply, the cost of goods sold is equal to the labor input to the goods and services plus a payment for capital, plus whatever the ruling class can force on to the top of the cost.  That explains virtually nothing in commerce, which is why the labor theory of capital was never taught anywhere in economics.  It doesn’t explain rent, the prices of land nor anything else. The market prices of commodities vary continually as do the price of equities. No relation to labor.  

‘Commerce’ on the other hand is not a homogeneous entity.  It has three separate components. Trade, Clientry, and Industry.  

Trade is usually a single proprietor often with hired workers.  The trader buys goods and marks up the price for sale based on the various costs, the volume of sales expected and the amount of lending needed to make the sales happen, plus a markup to keep the business running over time. A flower shop or a small bakery are good examples.  The French and the Overseas Chinese are masters of ‘trade.’ There are flower shops and bakeries anywhere there are French.  There are stalls or storefronts with single categories of goods wherever there are Overseas Chinese.

Clientry is the form of commerce that is designed to provide goods or services for the lifetime of the buyer.  A barber or dentist are good examples.  The price of the good or service is based on the market price and the level of skill of the seller. Clientry is based on a lifetime of service as the horizon for pricing. Surprisingly banking is a clientric business, with the intention of the seller or lender to maintain a long-term relationship with the customer, but bankers seldom have the sense of devotion to the customer found among lawyers and architects.

Industry is the type of business designed to maximize economies of scale. It is found wherever multiple stores, or large capital investments are operating.  Every chain business is designed to benefit from economies of scale as are all the entities we call industry; railroads, steel companies, airlines and McDonald’s.

Commerce thrives in societies that value markets, societies that restrain the power of government, and societies that are open to individual initiative.  

Government bans are a great restraint on the nature and quality of business.  Government’s absolute bans on silver restoration, cleaning solvents, and metal plating are a tiny example of the tens of thousands of businesses that are foreclosed by unreasonable and disproportionate government restrictions.

Commerce is 98.3% cooperative. The very nature of commerce is that hundreds, thousands, and sometimes, millions of people cooperate with each other daily. They cooperate within businesses, between businesses as suppliers, and as renters, advisors and colleagues.  

Yet the popular image of competition is the paramount mode of thinking about business. Commerce is cooperation on the grandest scale known to humans.

Lastly, commerce thrives where diversity of opinion, diversity of experience, and diversity of values are allowed to work together.  Merit is the milieu for commerce that creates vigor and innovation.

Someday more people will understand commerce and the world will be a better place.

PEOPLES Temple and Jim Jones

Most people in the world don’t know that Jim Jones, of the famous ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’ and Guyana mass suicide of over 900 people, was a communist.

I knew Jim Jones, personally, and interacted with him over the years he was in San Francisco. I heard one or two of his sermons.  Jim Jones was a Marxist. He was 100% a Marxist and he preached 100% pure communism.  He had a visceral hatred of ‘capitalism’ and he made that clear in every sermon. He also channeled the beauty of communist equality and fairness of government support.

Jim Jones’ community heard him lecture every week about the evils of capitalism and the beauty of communism.  His congregation was communist.  And disproportionately older black women.

Now the big fact:  When Jones, Reverend Jones, decided to move his congregation out of the United States he wrote to people in the USSR (Russia) and the Soviet Embassy in Washington and requested asylum for his congregation and himself in the Soviet Union.  

They turned him down.

So then he chose the jungles of Guyana as the new model home for his congregation. He promised a communist paradise.

Jonestown should be remembered as one of the many communist failures.

Does America Always Lose the War?

We may have a very distorted view of our own history.  Do we always lose our wars?

Independence

Start with our War of Independence. Did we win? Britain gave up. Really France won. The Treaty of Paris 1783 makes it clear.  France as the winner was given Senegal and Tobago by Britain.  The Colonies agreed to leave the Crown but share access to the Mississippi with Britain and accepted convivial conditions of trade with Britain. The American Colonies didn’t WIN.  They got partial independence with their co-victor, France. 

How can you lose a war of independence? You can’t. France won and the colonies took advantage of it.

Twenty years later Britain reminded the Colonies that they gained independence but never defeated the British military.

1812

America lost the War of 1812 decisively. Total loss. Britain with only one war to fight won overwhelmingly. Britain destroyed whatever they wanted to destroy.

Civil War

Did the Union Army win the Civil War? In deed only --The Confederacy signed a peace treaty. Lincoln’s priority—shared by Grant—was “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and unite the country together again as a functioning democracy under the Constitution.  Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction of the South and help for the blacks didn’t get very far.  

Lincoln was assassinated days after the peace treaty, by a Confederate supporter. Vice President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat supporter of slavery, became president and did little to carry out the reconstruction plans.  

Reconstruction only began two years later when Grant became president.  The ostensible losing side, the Confederate states resisted Reconstruction and it was defeated within twelve years, totally. From 1877 forward, blacks lost their economic and political rights and the whites from the Confederacy regained nearly all their rights and power. 

Seventy years later blacks were still being lynched by the KKK, couldn’t buy homes in white neighborhoods and were rarely employed in white businesses. The Southern Wing of the Democrat Party by 1965 had been in power for thirty-five years.  

One hundred years after the end of the Civil War, there was no victory celebration. None. Because the Union didn’t win.

Spain

There were battles in the late 19th century with Spain but no real battles over the four months of active Cuban hostility.  The U.S. gained control of Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines by paying Spain $20 million.  Nothing resembling a victory occurred from a nearly non existent Spanish military. 

WWI

World War I saw America enter the War late, the American president demanded a peaceful settlement at the end of the war.  The war ended because of influenza. 

The influenza hurt the German side the most because the German soldiers had to ride in trains back to their homeland for food and treatment, while the French went home on weekends during the war.  The Germans agreed to the American proposed peace treaty, but the French and British dictated the actual terms without regard to the Americans.  President Wilson had many strokes as the Treaty of Versailles was being worked on and was unable to have any influence on the outcome.

WWII

World War II was an absolute military victory for the Allied troops.  But the final outcome was determined by the Yalta Conference in February 1945. By the previous Fall president Roosevelt was medically weak, could not stand and by April of 1945 he died.  At Yalta, the USSR designated the meeting place, and the USSR demanded control of all of Eastern Europe.  Roosevelt conceded and asked for democrat rule of the area the USSR controlled.  Didn’t happen. Berlin was divided in half and the USSR demanded that the Allied half be divided among France, Britain and the U.S.  The USSR also took all of Siberia and Mongolia in return for a promise to send troops to fight Japan.  The USSR never did help.

The American military victory in WWII led to the United Nations. A seventy year failure for the U.S. The United Nations are united 150 to 1 against the U.S. most of the time.

Korea

The war in Korea was a settlement with an armistice much to the favor of North Korea, which is still a belligerent.

Vietnam

The Vietnam War was militarily won by the U.S. and then completely abdicated by the U.S. Democrat Congress which refused to help the South Koreans as the U.S. promised in the peace treaty. U.S. lost entirely.

Iraq and Afghanistan

Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not much to say. The first Iraq war was a complete loss, Saddam Hussein remained in power. The second dragged on for more than twenty years with no end, no cessation of hostilities.  Afghanistan was another complete loss.

America often wins the major battles but loses the war. 

And now the losers of Afghanistan, the Biden Democrats, are advising Israel to lose its war against the Gazan terrorist government.

For the Record

When Republicans controlled the Presidency and Congress we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Civil War.

I tried to get the nation to celebrate the 100th and 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the 14th Amendment but nothing happened because Democrats controlled both the Presidency and Congress.  Sorry folks I contacted Black leaders (many of whom I knew personally) and the D.C. government; no response. 

Its a fact.

This image is the 50th Anniversary parade with veterans of both sides of the Civil War.

We Vibrate

Humans vibrate.  There appears to be two types of vibration.

One is the vibration that is the speed at which one lives one’s life.

I know this from the large number of women I have dated and spent intimate time with.  This type of vibration is very subtle but very real. If it were measured on a scale around 10 as the mean of a bell curve, most people one can live with are 9’s and 11’s if one is a 10.

I found I could spend only a weekend with 8’s and 12’s. Otherwise we were not comfortable together. I did take a long trip with one woman who was a 12 but we had to spend much time apart.  She eventually married a karate teacher.

I know one woman who is a 13 or 14.  I can’t even walk with her; she moves too fast in everything she does.

There is another kind of vibration which is just the constant motion of one’s own body.  This is visible in people who can’t sit still, people whose legs vibrate and they can’t restrain themselves. It is visible in children who can’t be still and children who hop, skip, and jump all the time.

I can detect this kind of vibration when I sit intentionally motionless early in the morning before the sounds of the City begin to vibrate me.  I sit in a Zen style meditation with my legs crossed on top of a pillow. After sitting awhile, I no longer vibrate very much and have no desire to move.  I am also aware of the vibration of others.

Two types of human vibration, about which I know very little and about which I see little or no cognizance by other people.

The Real Nakba and Colonialism

Somehow the world needs a good lesson in Middle Eastern history.  Palestinians and a million other misinformed people think that when the newly founded state of Israel was forced to fight off five well-established and well-armed Arab enemy nations, that the Arabs living in the new state of Israel were driven out.

Absolutely false.  The resident Arabs were told to leave by the ruling Muslims and the attacking Arab nations. About half left both the new Israel and the United Nations created Palestine.   A small number left out of fear of local terrorism which at the time was decades old.  The new State of Israel always permitted them to return.  This Arab exodus is referred to as the Nakba.

The real Nakba occurred over the next decade.

More than twice as many Jews, close to 850,000, were driven out of Arab lands with their possessions and wealth confiscated.  Most were settled in Israel with no compensation or support from any Arabs or international bodies.

The comparable misinformation about the history of the region has to do with settlement and the absurd term ‘colonialism.’  One hundred fifty years ago when Jews first began the modern settlement in Israel, there were about equal numbers of Jews and Arabs in the small area that became Palestine, under the rule of the Turkish Empire. The Jews had been there since Roman times. The Arabs had been wandering desert tribes with temporary settlements in the area. The Jews lived in small ancient towns. The Arabs were wandering tribal traders attracted to the area by the Jews creation of new jobs.

Jews had been settled in the entire Middle East for millenia.  Jews had well-established communities  in Persia, especially in Isfahan, and were long settled in Babylon the center of the Middle East, eight hundred years before Mohammed was born in the 6th century.  Islam is recent.  Jews are very ancient.

None of this is contested by decent people who have access to myriad documents and artifacts from the area.

What Destroyed California and San Francisco?

Term limits and small districts.

I’ve watched California go from a Republican state to a super-majority Democrat one. I was close to politics all that time.  I finally figured out what happened.

I watched the change in the legislatures as Assemblyman Jesse Unruh took over the Democrat Party from 1961.  In those days I was an Assembly Legislative Analyst running the campaign of a San Francisco Assemblyman.  Unruh took contributions from all the lobbyists and used the money to elect loyal Democrat legislators.  He was later succeeded by Willie Brown who used the same formula to govern the State.  Labor money became the backbone of state campaign finance and there was a direct pipeline from union state employees to the Democrat Party. The system became stronger and embedded over time.

Term limits were introduced statewide in the late 90s and in San Francisco for the second time in 2000.

First we got a deep well of funding for the Democrat aspirants, then we got a ladder to a life in politics.

The term limits meant that winning the first step on the ladder offered a series of steps up the ladder as the term-limit law created all the steps on the ladder upward.  In San Francisco that meant the first step was a trivial spot on the school board or the City College Board. Then a spot on the Board of Supervisors, then a position in the Assembly followed by a seat in the Senate followed by election to one of the many Statewide offices.  

That is what we have today. A home grown political machine.  The tiny districts just make it easier for a political nobody to get their first step in office.  Tiny districts are often controlled by one or two fictional neighborhood clubs.