y-intercept blog

The Effect of the Candidate

2012-01-29T14:21:00.001-07:00

When you vote for a candidate, one needs to consider the effect of the canidate on the system at large.

Obama is an Alinsky-style community organizer. Obama rose to power by organizing one part of a community against the other parts. The result of this type of organizing is an extremely shrill political climate.

Marx played the same game. He organized the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Hundreds of millions of people died under the banner "Workers of the World Unite!"

Obama is a wonderful speaker, but the effect he has is devasting for our nation.

I agree with Ron Paul on most of his positions from ending the Federal Reserve to his differentiation of defense and militarism.

Sadly, I fear that, if he won the presidency, his administration would be undermined by the Republican establishment and that he would not have the positive effect I desire.

Romney is part of a Republican establishment that has a history of stifling the freedom movement in the Republican Party. In Utah, the Republican Establishment took the Health Exchange from ObamaCare, declared them to be free market and imposed them on the people with no debate.

Anyone who tries to stand against the imposition of RomneyCare will be viciously attacked by the Romney clones.

Now, I agree that Newt Gingrich is a deeply flawed candidate. Everyone knows Gingrich is deeply flawed. He is a geek who gets excited by technology and loves fanciful ideas like space travel.

Gingrich's presidency is likely to lead to a period in which people are talking about big ideas.

In summary: Obama unites people against eachother. This Marxian/Alinsky style of politics leads to deep division:

Ron Paul hopes to restore America by obstructionism. He is likely to have a bunker presidency followed by a progressive.

The organization Mitt Romney will lead to eight years of the Republican Establishment actively silencing voices of liberty on the Right.

The deeply flawed Newt Gingrich is likely to lead to a period in which people talked about big ideas. The biggest of all ideas is freedom. I think Newt is more likely to succeed in restoring Health freedom than Ron Paul.

In conclusion, Newt Gingrich is a deeply flawed candidate, but he is probably the best choice for the GOP, which just happens to be a deeply flawed party.

Chasing Emerging Markets

2012-01-26T16:28:00.002-07:00

The most exciting development of the last two decades was the rapid expansion of the emerging markets.

Third world countries that used to wallow in dire poverty have begun to take shape as vibrant modern economies.

During the Bush era, the emerging markets surged forth as the primary growth areas in the world economy.

Intelligent business leaders have learned that they need to identify and chase growing markets. As the emerging markets were the primary growth area in the world, American companies were wise to seek a part in the action.

I dislike that some companies have outsourced jobs simply to cut costs; however, I believe the driving economic force behind outsourcing was the desire of US companies to diversify their portfolio and to chase opportunities in the exciting growth of the emerging markets.

There are many voices calling for a new age of protectionism, and for the United States government to begin penalizing firms for investing in the emerging markets.

I find this new atmosphere of protectionism troubling.

The call to penalize American businesses for investing in the emerging markets will not stop growth around the world. Programs to penalize American companies for participating in emerging markets will simply hurt the interest of American businesses, while triggering trade wars against our nation.

I agree that rhetoric against companies that outsource to lower employee costs is effective. However, since it is impossible to determine the intent behind actions. there is no way to separate those firms seeking to engage in emerging markets from those simply seeking to lower costs. As the former is far more important than the latter, I'm inclined to push compelling rhetoric aside and say that America companies should seek opportunities in the emerging markets and we should avoid the protectionisth stance.

A Business Movement

2012-01-26T11:10:00.001-07:00

As the primary progresses, I hope that it has become clear to the defenders of freedom that presidential politics cannot restore America.

Government, by nature, is a constraint placed upon the people. The founders created a limited government to reduce the burden of this constraint.

The best one can hope for in presidential politics is a candidate who will keep government in check. Even if a principled constitutionalist like Ron Paul won the election, the president would be besieged by a well honed political machine that feeds off government largess.

The biggest problem in our nation is not the government, but a top-heavy corrupt financial system dominated by big banks and captured centralized exchanges.

The best way to reform these corrupt businesses is to create alternatives.

In the last two years I've blogged on The Medical Savings and Loan as an alternative to insurance.

The regulatory environment makes starting the MS&L difficult.

I am tired of just blogging and want to engage in affirmation action ... NOW.

I've applied free market principles to other areas of life and have a really fun recreational product that is ready to go live as soon as I can find a few dozen ~~victims~~ participants.

The goal of this effort is to use social media to create a network of businesses in a recreational/sports industry.

Presidential politics and agitating will not restore America. Action will. I am tired of just agitating ... if anyone else is tired of agitating and wants to get to work starting a weekend (recreational) business that actively discusses the free market please contact me.

Congress Passes the Laws, the Prez Administrates

2012-01-22T12:00:00.004-07:00

I love Ron Paul as a Congressman. We need more people like him in the legislature.

That said, I am hoping Newt Gingrich wins the nomination for president.

Newt is a lover of big ideas. This deeply flawed candidate has a history of flitting from big idea to big idea, but he does have a history of getting big ideas in place.

Mr. Gingrich might best be described as a random policy generator.

He jumps from idea to idea and one comes out as policy.

If Mr. Gingrich won the presidency, I suspect that we would enter a period in which people started discussing big ideas with hopes of getting their ideas churned through the random policy generator.

The biggest of all big ideas is freedom.

Having a random policy generator in the White House is scary, however, I've come to realize that the people matter more than the presidency.

The idea that the presidency is going to restore our freedom is absurd. The only way to restore freedom is for the people to take it back.

Of the candidates on the ballot, Newt's presidency is most likely to lead to a culture where people gear up to take their freedom back.

I love the ideas of Ron Paul. I fear that his trying to legislate from an administration position would lead to a negative public reaction and a bunker mentality in the White House, which would not advance freedom.

The worst of the candidates is the organization man Mitt Romney. Mitt will speak free market rhetoric while passing progressive legislation. The cultural climate would become stagnant as his organization will actively suppress real discourse in the community.

I am happy with Gingrich taking the lead in South Carolina and believe he is the least bad of the presidential candidates.

I say least bad, because I think the people matter more than the presidency. My greatest hope is that Tea Party and Campaign for Liberty continue to thrive.

Freedom is not a gift from the presidency, it is gift from the creator that people must defend or lose.

The Limited Opportunity for the MS&L

2012-01-19T11:36:00.001-07:00

The weak point of PPACA (ObamaCare) is the insurance mandate. PPACA requires that everybody buys insurance.

The easiest way to attack the mandates is to create a viable alternative to insurance.

The Medical Savings and Loan is a viable alternative to insurance. The MS&L funds health care through a structured savings program supplemented with loans and grants.

Unfortunately, the MS&L is not practical at the moment because our tax laws and health care regulations favor insurance. Notably, insurance allows you to buy healtcare with untaxed dollars. The MS&L would have to use taxed dollars.

The passage of ObamaCare created a limited time opportunity to bring the MS&L into existence.

The first step is political.

People who are against government control of health care can use the MS&L in a campaign for heatlh freedom. The movement would demand that the MS&L be given an even playing field so that it can be developed as an alternative to insurance.

By putting the Medical Savings and Loan on the table, the opponents of PPACA aren't just against something, they are now for something. They are now arguing for a dynamic market that includes insurance and viable alternatives to insurance.

Americans are a positive people. It is easier to win an argument when you are arguing for something.

This political movement cannot exist on its own. If a political movement demands an alternative to insurance and there is no viable alternative to insurance in the mix, then the politicians are spouting empty rhetoric.

So, it is critical to accompany the political effort with a business effort.

The business effort would include a serious effort to make the Medical Savings and Loan a viable product that could be implemented by people who feel underserved by the current insurance paradigm. This is a huge potential market.

The first step in both the political and business movement is for a small group of patriots to get together in a room to start the process of creating a non-profit entity that defines the program.

This would take a weekend and a thousand bucks. I have a week end, I don't have a thousand bucks.

For the last three years, I've concentrated exclusively on this idea of getting a half dozen patriots in a room on a weekend to discuss creating a non-profit organization with the dual goal of arguing for health freedom in the political arena and of creating tools to help people self-finance their care in the business arena.

I live in Utah. Utah is a toxic political environment. However, it is really fun to have meetings at Park City. I am able to travel to Arizona, Las Vegas, Missoula, Denver or other near by states. Someone would have to pay my travel expenses to go much further than that.

Personally, I think either Tucson or Phoenix would be the best place to start a non-profit for health freedom. The Goldwater Institute in Phoenix is pro-freedom and the AAPS in Tucson are pro-health freedom.

Anyway, the passage of ObamaCare in 2009 created a limited opportunity to make the Medical Savings and Loan a reality. The time window on the opportunity is closing. If I can't find six people who are willing to sit in a room with me to talk about health freedom, then the game is over.

Health Care Advocate

2012-01-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

My goal with the Medical Savings and Loan was to reverse-engineer an insurance company along free market principles.

I took the large insurance pools and sliced them up into individual accounts owned and controlled by the policy holders.

I realized that people would need help in administering their savings accounts and help in negotiating with doctors.

So, I created a new position called a Health Care Advocate.

In this second step, I take the internal bureaucracy of the insurance company and externalize it.

With standard insurance, you have a large pool of cash controlled by the company. The insurance company then hires an army of actuaries, underwriters, accountants, clerks and claims adjusters whose job it is to protect the pool.

In the Medical Savings and Loan, people own their own health care resources; So I take the same bureaucracy and have it work to help people understand and optimize their health care resources.

I believe that this act of transforming the internal bureaucracy into an external service would dramatically improve the financing of health care.

Answer to a Question

2012-01-18T01:33:00.000-07:00

Prd2bnAmerican asked "What happens to the ppl who dont save? Who cant save for future HC?"
The answer to your question is long because I have to look at different populations. This post has four sections:

The MS&L as an Alternative to Insurance
The MS&L for the self employed
The MS&L as Public Policy
People in Desperate Need

The MS&L as an Alternative to Insurance

Most people these days work for an employer. So the primary market for the MS&L will be as an alternative to insurance. The employer makes the payments into the MS&L. The employees would be asked to sign contracts that they will only use the money for health care.
There are big questions about how ironclad one can make the contract and the tax status of the compensation.

The MS&L for the self employed

The second big group for the product is the self employed. The self employed are looking for an alternative to insurance and are generally motivated to save. The big problem with the self employed is that they suffer big ups and downs in their life.

The MS&L as Public Policy

The Medical Savings and Loan can be used in public policy. For example, if a person has no savings and requests medical care; you would give the person a loan for the care, assign the person a case worker then slam them into a structured savings program. The fact that you gave out a loan gives you a little bit more control than simply giving free health care.

People in Desperate Need

There are people who either have really high medical expenses or really low earning potential.
No matter how you go about financing health care, such people end up consuming more than they produce.
A person with a lifetime income of $400,000 might only have $20k to spend on health care. They don't have the income to pay for insurance. The Medical Savings and Loan gives such people direct control over the amount they have for care while providing substantial supplements.
Likewise, people with middle incomes and wicked nasty health care costs are unable to pay for their care. Again, the program gives such people direct control over some money while receiving supplements.

Conclusion

The Medical Savings and Loan is more flexible than insurance pools. By breaking an insurance pool into individual accounts, it is possible to create a system that can be customized to meet the different needs of different people.
The primary goal of the program is to help those people who can self fund their health care accomplish this goal. This is the bulk of health care in America. Helping working class Americans self-finance their care is empowering. It also reduces the stress on social services.
The Medical Savings and Loan exposes itself in an elegant way to social welfare. While the Medical Savings and Loan does not start with public policy, public policy can draw on the program to give incentives for good behavior. Notably, rather than giving free health care to the poor, the system would give loans and place people into structured savings plans to repay the loans.
No system provides a perfect solution to the problem of people who must consume more than they produce to survive.

Shifting Left

2012-01-17T11:08:00.002-07:00

The debt crisis is a the result of multiple causes. What has happened is a general leftward shift in our financing.

Things that our parents would only buy with cash on hand, we now buy on debt. The things our parents used to save for, we now fund with insurance. Even worse, Americans in our progressive age feel a great sense of entitlement and demand that a great many services be handed to them by the community.

The way out of the debt crisis is to create a mechanism to shift things back to the right.

The goal of the Medical Savings and Loan is to reverse-engineer an insurance pool with a minimal amount of disruption.

The biggest challenge is that a large number of people are now dependent on insurance.

I almost used the phrase "heavily invested in insurance." But insurance is not an investment. You may be paying an insurance premium of $18,000 a year, but none of that money is going to build equity. Insurance is all pay-go.

A person in his sixties may have paid a half million dollars in insurance premiums. That money is all gone. Bye, Bye. Your insurance agent has a fancy car, and you now have dependency.

A dramatic shift from insurance back to savings is problematic because the people who've developed a dependency on insurance will get scrunched by the process.

We, as a society, do not like to see people getting schrunched.

The Medical Savings and Loan addresses this problem by looking at each person individually. Remember, the mantra of the program is "those who can self fund their care should self fund their care. Those who can't need assistance."

The MS&L uses a system of savings and loans to help those people who can self-fund their care do so, and a system of grants for those who cannot.

So, if you look at a person in his sixties, you will find that the person has relatively low income and relatively high medical expenses. A guy who makes $50k a year and is 4 years from retirement has only $200,000 to work with. A person near retirement does not have time to pay back any loans. So, a company switching from insurance to the Medical Savings and Loan, they would have to pay for this guy's medical expenses with grants.

The Medical Savings and Loan is all data driven. The program compiles, on a person by person basis, all of the information on income and expected health expenses. In the first years of the program, the company would have to top load the grant portion of the program.

As people build up savings, the amount of money needed for the grant program would decrease.

IMHO, insurance is a poisoned product. When I worked in insurance, I found that the system promised care that they never delivered. It is likely that many of the people who paid into insurance all their lives will get less health care by switching back to self funded care.

This is a fault of insurance, not the fault of the Medical Savings and Loan.

An alcoholic gets the shakes when he tries to sober up. The fact that sobriety hurts is not the result of sobriety being bad. Sobriety hurts because the drinking was bad.

The Medical Savings and Loan is a mathematical model for transitioning from group funded to individually funded care. It is worth examination. The program, as designed, can help reduce the adverse affects of switching from a debtor society back to a saving society.

Definition of Medical Savings and Loan

2012-01-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

I am interested in starting a dialogue about a thing I call The Medical Savings and Loan.

The Medical Savings and Loan is a free market alternative to insurance pools. The program argues that the problem in American health care is the use of group funding for individual consumption. I developed the program by reverse-engineering an insurance pool into individual accounts.

Here is my problem:

For a dialogue to exist, the people in the dialogue must agree to the definition of terms.

If no-one agrees to the definition of terms, then I'm just monologuing. Monologuing leads nowhere. With no-one agreeing to the definition of terms, the program itself simply degenerates into agitation.

There is a great deal of mathematics behind the plan.
People have asked me to give them links to more information on the plan.

But I don't want to put up any more pages until I have a chance to sit down and talk face to face with people to make sure they understand the definitions.

I have a presentation that takes an hour or so in which I introduce the basic plan. I really don't want to post anything more online until I give the presentation ... somewhere.

I live in Utah. I am not LDS. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is a serious academic conversation about financing health care.

I can easily travel to Colorado, Arizona, Nevada or Idaho. If anyone is interested in hosting the discussion they can contact me. I am hesitant to write more on the plan prior to presenting it to a group for review.

Question and Answer

2012-01-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick Question and Answer session to help clarify the difference between the Republican and Democratic approach to Health Care Reform:

What do you call a Health Exchange run by Democrats?

Socialism

What do you call a Health Exchange run by Republicans?

Capitalism

Splitting the Vote

2012-01-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

During both the Bush and Nixon years, the Republican Party successfully silenced the freedom movement. In both cases, the Republicans set up big wins for the socialist left.

My calculus is as follows: If Romney wins the nomination, then America would have a choice between four more years of a weakened Obama or eight years of a progressive Republican who actively suppresses the freedom movement in the Republican Party.

Since Progressive Democrats are most likely to win in 2020 (after Romney's dominion), I see Romney's winning the presidency as the end of health freedom.

According to my calculus, four more years of Obama would be preferable to Romney.

Remember, despite the fact that we have an imperial president, what the people does is still more important than what the president does. People are reactionary creations and they react against on overbearing leader.

So, Imagine that a libertarian leaning third party candidate split the vote in 2012. In such a scenario, the Republicans would take the Senate and Obama would win with less than a majority vote.

If this happened, then we would have four shrill years of a split government followed by an election in which both parties vied to get approval of the freedom movement.

A split vote would give us a weak president facing an opposition party followed by an election in which both parties actively distanced themselves from their progressive past and wooed the freedom movement.

In converse, if a progressive Republican won, we would see the Republican establishment actively suppressing the freedom movement in harmony with the progressive left which will seek to project the failures on socialism onto the freedom movement.

If you consider the reaction of the people, then the best possible outcome for 2012 would be for a third party to split the vote and for America to suffer another four years of Obama.

Debt Financing Leads to Bad Business Models

2012-01-11T19:56:00.001-07:00

There is good government and bad government.

The American experiment was a success until recently because the Founders had created a system that limited governance to a few areas where government does a good job.

There is good business and bad business. For example, the protection racket is a business. You pay me money, and I protect you from my friend Biff who breaks legs.

When we look at our financial system, we see that terrible things are going on. We simply have to be able to have a conversation about what distinguishes good and bad business models.

The Marxian left does its damage by encouraging the development of bad business models that attack and destroy good businesses. Marx's goal in defining Capitalism was to create a paradox-ridden top-heavy finance system that openly oppressed the people.

Marx, the father of Capitalism, created a bastard child that was doomed to collapse into ruin.

Foolish Marxists believe a socialist utopia will miraculously emerge from the ashes. They encourage and active work on developing destructive businesses. Notably, Joseph Kennedy made billions through stock manipulation, and George Soros made billions through currency manipulation.

The derivatives that crashed the economy came directly from progressive universities into Wall Street.

Nimrods on the right aid this effort by being unwilling acknowledge that many businesses today (especially in the financial sector) are doing a great deal of harm.

Our business world is dominated by corrupt financial firms that take on huge leveraged positions in efforts to dominate the market. These efforts systematically drive out good companies with easy money.

There is something wrong with our financial system.

Part of the problem is debt financing. The equity financing discussed by Adam Smith is a positive space.

Debt financing is a strange negative space.
When you take out a thousand dollar loan, that loan is debit on your accounts, but it is an asset on the bank's books. If you took out a million dollar loan, your books look would look horrible, but the bank's books would look great.

Debt begets debt.
Let's say a friend owed you ten thousand dollars. You might just borrow against that asset. Your creditor might borrow against your loan and so on.

Because a debt based financial system works in a negative space, it lends itself to horrific abuse.

Our progressive universities teach business leaders that they must dominate or perish. The business leaders go into the market and take out absurd debt positions to dominate a market.

As bad money chases out good, these business drones will flood the market with easy money. However, the majority of them fail ... bringing down the good businesses that use equity financing.
To recover from the collapse, free market loving Americans must be willing to discuss the difference between destructive and constructive financial models.

I love the discussion about whether or not Bain Capital was a vulture or venture capital firm.

What is good and what is bad venture capital?

There is clearly something wrong with the current venture capital system as it gives a disproportionate amount of the reward to the financiers, when it is the innovators that actually created the wealth.

The enemies of the free market have engaged in discussions on how to corrupt the financial system

Did I mention, Karl Marx was the father of Capitalism?
Unfortunately, blathering fools, like Sean Hannity, who defend the Marx's version of capitalism bring us all down by preventing a much needed discussion of good versus bad business models.

We need to have a discussion of good versus bad business models, even if the discussion doesn't fit within the political objectives of Mr. Hannity.

Centrism Becomes Irrational in a Progressive World

2012-01-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ideas are fun. I love playing with them.

I've discovered that it is possible to find a compromise position between any two given ideas. Likewise, it is possible to frame any given idea as the compromise between two extremes.

I love to find compromises that resolve conflicts. It makes me feel good.

I used to think that centrism was a rational position. The centrist would look at the conflicts of the day, weigh both sides and seek to find a middle ground. You can't get more rational than that?

The sad truth is that the centrist is that centrists come to their conclusion by reacting to conflicts. Skilled manipulators can contrive conflicts that would drive the centrist's compromises.

Progressivism is a strategy that seeks to impose socialism through a progression of compromises. The progressive presents a conflict, often by projecting false images on the right.

The centrist seeks a compromise. This compromise, however, simply sets up the next conflict.

In this progressive system, the people who actually commit to a given compromise get framed as conservative. In many cases, one finds that the original position of the progressive gets projected on to the conservative.

The most dramatic example is racism. Prior to the Civil Rights movement, the left used the call for segregation to expand government. The media now routinely projects racism on the right.

In our modern progressive landscape, the centrists are the irrational reactionaries as they react to the never ending progression of conflicts presented by the radicals.

One can only achieve compromise when both parties involved are willing to commit to the compromise. Demanding compromise in a fluid environment just leads to chaos.

Prosperity Measures

2012-01-06T08:55:00.003-07:00

Government, as the name implies, is a system for limiting the activities of people.

The Founders of the United States realized that, by limiting government, they removed constraints from the people.

Removing constraints led to widespread prosperity.

It is paradoxical that, by limiting the government, one releases the potential of the people.

To unravel the paradox, one need simply realize that the people are the positive space and government a negative space.

Our public discourse, however, focuses almost exclusively on government.

The left, which seeks to restore the feudal system of an unlimited government and constrained people, uses the paradoxical discourse to its advantage. They frame any attempts to limit government as austerity measures.

They call attempts to limit the constraints on the people "austerity measures."

Breaking this spell is a simple matter of creating a dialog in which the lives of the people are presented as the primary space and politics as an artificial constraining force that needs to be limited.

This was my goal in the Medical Savings and Loan.

The Medical Savings and Loan is a business model for funding health care. The model creates thousands of small businesses designed to help people optimize their health care resources. The program replaces big centralized insurance companies with thousands of small distributed financial service firms.

Yes, the model has political implications. The heart of the model is small business. Thousands of small businesses.

Implementing the Medical Savings and Loan would involve the creation of thousands of vibrant businesses. The owners of the businesses would live middle class lifestyles. Some would become millionaires. It wouldn't create any billionaires.

The Medical Savings and Loan would move billions of dollars from control of the ruling class back into the hands of the people. (Both the Republican and Democratic ruling elite want to stifle discussion of this plan).

The Medical Savings and Loan is not crony capitalism. It is not a government program implemented through politically connected businesses.

It is the exact opposite. The program replaces crony capitalism with a network of small businesses. Best of all, it empowers individuals by letting them retain control of their health care resources.

The Medical Savings and Loan could be used in the current political debates to overturn ObamaCare and the oppressive centralized health exchanges created by ObamaCare.

The plan makes the private sector the positive space and exposes government as the limiting factor in growth.
Once the political debate is done, the Medical Savings and Loan would be entirely about small businesses helping other small businesses solve the health care puzzle.

The Medical Savings and Loan is an extremely beautiful plan that gets executed in the private sector.

Don’t you see how the vision of the US Founders works? The whole point of limiting government is to release the creativity of the private sector.

The vision of the founders was contingent on a robust private sector. The way to defend that vision is to present arguments in which the private sector is in the foreground.

Limiting government is not an austerity measure, it is a prosperity measure.

Unfortunately, the program needs a small amount of support to get off the ground. It needs a dozen people physically gathered in a room to talk about the idea.

The Medical Savings and Loan is about human to human interaction. It is not a computer program. Yes, it involves a mathematical model, but it is about people physically working with other people. Anyway, here is my contact form again. Yes, the program will create several millionaires. I can't guarantee that you will be one of the millionaires.

You Can't Repeal, You Can Replace

2012-01-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

The Founders realized that their Constitution was far from perfect and designed the document for change.

The interesting thing is that they created a mechanism to amend the Constitution, but did not create a mechanism to directly repeal parts of the document.

There is wisdom to this structure.

It is in our nature to want to change the past. But it is physically impossible for humans to change the past.

By one definition, a conservative is a person who wants to return to a given state of things. In politics 101, a conservative is a person who reacts to progressive change.

Regardless of the definition, Conservatives have a long history of trying to repeal legislation passed by progressives and they have a dismal fail rate to show for the effort.

Notice the failure of financial deregulation. Derivatives and short selling were created as regulatory tools. These tools depend on regulation. Removing the regulations regarding these regulatory devices led to economic chaos.

Conservatives would be wise to listen to the wisdom of the Founders: You can amend, but you can't repeal.

Rather than trying to repeal laws they don't like, advocates of the free market need to think through the foundations of free market economics and devise replacements for bad laws.

I dislike ObamaCare. But ObamaCare has already changed the state of things.

One cannot simple repeal this bad law. This anti-market "health exchanges" are already being implemented at the state level.

The only way to get rid of this thing is to come up with a free market alternative to state run health care.

Unfortunately, Conservatives are so caught up in their rhetoric of nullification that they have ignored the wisdom of the founders. You cannot repeal, you can only ammend.

Any changes we make must take into account the current state of existence.

If we don't like socialized medicine, then we must come up with a proactive mechanism for unrolling a group health pool (socialized medicine) into individual accounts.

I've been working on this problem for thirty years and could contribute to an effort to restore health freedom. That would involve something radical like holding a meeting somewhere. If anyone is interested in restoring health freedom, they could contact me.

Doves To The Rescue

2012-01-04T03:04:00.001-07:00

America would be safer with a Republican Dove at the helm than a Republican Hawk.

The greatest strategic threat to the United States is not Iran. Our greatest threat is internal division.

Look at this country. America is more divided at this moment than at any time during my life.

The OWS movement shows that the United States is a powderkeg looking for a spark.

If a Republican Hawk was president and we were drawn into a war with Iran, the anti-American forces of the world would frame the war as the creation of the United States. We could actually see rioting in the street.

Does anyone remember the Iraq War?

There were good reasons for George Bush's decision to invade Iraq. In the lead up to the war, both the International Community and the US Democrats were giving support to regime change in the rogue state.

As soon as George Bush was mired in the conflict, the International Left turned on Bush with a vengeance.

The reaction was so strong that it moved the entire world dramatically to the left.

On the international scene, we saw a number of countries elect in Communist dictators. At home, the reaction to the war gave a supermajority to a radical left wing Congress.

The left had so much success with its reactionary politics against Bush that we are guaranteed to see a repeat of this reaction if another hawkish Republican is drawn into a war.

I believe that the world would be much safer if we had a Republican Dove in the executive office. The only dove in the Republican line up is Ron Paul.

I have no doubt that Ron Paul would defend the United States to the bitter end. His history as a dove would help counter the reactionary forces that escalated the troubles during the Iraq War.

A war is a system ruled by action and reaction. Although there was justification for Bush's decision to invade Iraq, the decision led to an extremely ugly chain of action and reaction that greatly damaged the United States.

Those who engage in foreign affairs must consider the whole chain of action and reaction. Bush clearly was not prepared for the reaction that set in after the Iraq invasion.

A Republican Hawk taking unilateral action against Iran will spark a similar if not worse reaction than we saw in Iraq.
I am dismayed that Republican candidates keep pushing the hawk position, when Amerca's best interests would be preserved by a dove.

Primary Lovefest v. Primary Battlefield

2011-12-31T13:13:00.001-07:00

Do you remember in 2008 when the press colluded with their leaders in the Democratic Party to present leftwing politics as a lovefest?

Issues played a back seat to images.

The media was so slick that even the seriously flawed candidate John Edwards appeared a beacon of reason and hope.

America replaced the Democratic majority in Congress with a Democratic supermajority without even a slightest idea of what the supermajority would do.

Many of my friends thought Obama would usher in a new age of reason and social justice with a legislature constrained by hardcore financial acumen and Blue Dog sensibilities.

The Republican primary is the opposite.

The media blows up every minor conflict while beating drums of fear, doom and gloom.

Sadly, ideas still take a back seat to the conflicts. The only really well developed idea to appear in the campaign was Cain's 999 Plan (which wasn't a very good plan).

I like that Ron Paul has been consistent in his defense of the Constitution, but his campaign has failed to give the public any idea about how we will transition from our corrupt centralized government back to a Constitutionally limited one.

I am not pounding the Ron Paul drum because, without a clearly defined path, Dr. Paul will not succeed in the goal of restoring the Constitution. I fear that the Paulistas have underestimated the anti-freedom reaction that will ensue if Paul won.

The people I met at Occupy Wall Street were so overcome with hatred that I actually fear violence if we tried directly restoring the Constitution by reducing the central authority.

I look in dismay at the field of candidates and fear that none of them are positioned to restore the Constitution.

But as I think about the American experiment, I realize that the Founders of the United States really did not intend the president to be as powerful as the president is today.

The Founders of the United States rejected the monarchy. The did not want the presidency to be the source of ideas. They wanted the people, the states and legislatures to be the source of ideas.

In my opinion, the ideal president would be someone who would administer the government while the people were the source of the creative ideas. The thing to avoid is a president with an organization that actively stifles debate.

I really fear the Republican Establishment behind Mitt Romney. Were Romney president, the Republican establishment would bear down and effectly silence and destroy the voices of freedom within the party ... as had happened under George Bush.

As the candidates bash at each other in Iowa, I hope the American people abandon the fantasy that the presidency is the answer.

In the American Experiment, the people, not the government, should be the source of the ideas.

The one and only way for America to restore our freedom is for the members of the freedom movement to break out its shell and start actively discussing real solutions for the afflictions of the day.

A Libertarian who looks toward the presidency to solve our problems is a contradiction in terms. Liberty loving Americans need to find the answers within themselves and not the with the government.

The Iowa caucus has simply re-inforced my opinion that there are no candidates on this planet who I want to have the power currently concentrated in the presidency.

Republicans Sell Out the Tea Party

2011-12-29T09:56:00.001-07:00

Dick Morris really doesn't like Ron Paul. What is interesting is that Mr. Morris frames Ron Paul as a leftwing radical. The mainstream media frames Dr. Paul as an extreme rightwing radical (The terms "left" and "right" are meaningless).

IMHO: Dr. Paul's positions are closer to the US Founders and the original intent of the American Experiment than any candidate in recent history.

Remember in the days before the passing of ObamaCare when Fox News and the Republican Establishment were encouranging the TeaParty and free market rhetoric?

Now that it is king-making time in the Republican Party, the powers that be have turned full forces against the voices of freedom.

The Democrats play the same game. They launched forth with that bizarre Occupy Wall Street Movement in an off season. They will throw OWS throw it under the bus during the election.

The Dick Morris video shows conclusively that the Republican Party IS NOT a party for freedom. They encourage freedom rhetoric when they are out of power and turn against freedom when they are in power. The modern right is as dialectical and Hegelian as the left.

Mitt Romney will not overturn ObamaCare. At best we will see the corrupt health care exchanges moved from Federal control to State control.

The Tea Party was wrong to put its faith in the Republican Party, for the Republican Party will always sell out freedom when it gets a whiff of power.

Mixed Use Communities

2011-12-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

There is a new fad in the development world called "Mixed Use." A mixed use community is developed by a single politically connected developer. The development generally includes office space, shops, condos and apartments.

Cookiecutter mixed-use communities are popping up in towns across the nation.

The big developers popping these communities out of the mold spew forth with reams of progressive dribble about how their new planned society will be so much superior than the failed free market in which residential and commercial space was artificially divided.

The dribble makes me want to scream.

The reason that we have a big separation between residential and commercial space was zoning.

Zoning is not done by the free market. Zoning is a contrivance of anti-market forces.

If you look at the development in pioneer days, it was all mixed use. There were stores generously sprinkled among the houses. It was common for houses to transition from shacks to single family houses to duplexes.

Many stores had living quarters above the store proper.

Zoning was a creation of progressives. The progressives forced an artificial seperation upon our communities.

Salt Lake County is a great example of zoning gone horribly wrong. The zoning boards in Salt Lake made it virtually impossible for people to transition older homes into duplexes or multi-unit apartments. Likewise, it was next to impossible for developments to build high density complexes in the city. The result was that developers bought up farms in unincorporated areas; thus creating a dysfunctional community where low income families in high density housing were isolated from the community and the services they needed.

Progressives like DeeDee Corradini and Rocky Anderson are the ones who created this dysfunctional city where tens of thousands of people are left languishing in food deserts with inadequate access to services.

May the progressives rot.

And what is the progressive solution to the dysfunctional world created by progressives? The progressives now want to create massives planned complexes where the entire community is engineered and owned by a single developer.

The new progressive mixed-communities look pretty in contrast to the overzoned cities of our progressive past ... but they are pits of stagnation. As the pretty little mixed use facilities are own3d by politically connected developers, this brave new planned community will simply stamp out creativity and self expression. A true free market, in contrast, is would a mixed use community that evolves as the local market changes.

A society with no ownership is not a real community. Such a society is really just a guilded concentration camp.

(The food deserts we see are a result of zoning, not the market. If people had the freedom to switch houses to stores, then someone would start selling food to meet local demand).

Technocrat v. Organization Man

2011-12-22T13:08:00.003-07:00

Every presidential election seems to come down to a choice between the bad and the worse.

Both Gingrich and Romney are big government, big business progressives.

When a Libertarian soul is given a choice between progressives, it a matter of choosing the candidate that will do the least harm to our freedom.

Yes, Gingrich has a vision of a corrupt technocracy lording over health care. If Gingrich were president. However, if Gingrich were president, it would be possible to directly attack the technocratic vision.

It is, after all, up to the Congress and states to repeal ObamaCare.

If Gingrich were president, America would launch into an open debate about technocracy v. health freedom.

Like Obama, Romney is an organization man. His goal will be to transfer control of the Health Exchanges from Democratic control to Republican control.

If Romney wins, the Republican Establishment (Fox News Included) will stifle debate about healfh freedom

With both the Republican and Democrat working against freedom, there will be no chance to restore freedom.

The Republican Establishment of Utah slammed an iron boot on the discussion of health freedom to pass its corrupt health exchanges. If Romney wins, both Republicans and Democratics will be united in slamming their boots down and preventing open debate about health freedom.

I am choosing Gingrich over Romney as I see it as the only way to repeal the Health Care Exchanges.

Center For Health Transformation

2011-12-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

I just visited Gingrich's Center for Health Transformation and I suddenly feel like puking.

It is all the same technocratic that is in Obamacare.

Technology evolves on its own. We don't need a top heavy government to impose technological solutions on the American people.

What we need is a system that is built around the individual, then the technology is more likely to evolve in a way that enhances the patients lives.

The primary problem that the health freedom movement faces is that establishment Republicans want a top heavy technocratic solution.

Of course, the one and only way to restore health freedom would be for patriots to start talking about health freedom.

I wish I could find a group interested in health freedom.

All of the Republican Groups I know from the Sutherland Institute to the Center of Health Transformation are dedicated to top down health care.

Ron Paul is pretty much the only voice that health care starts with individual humans. What we need is health care reform that builds from the individual person upwards ... not from the ruling class downward.

Making the Medical Savings and Loan Real

2011-12-17T13:50:00.003-07:00

What is needed to bring the Medical Savings and Loan into existence?

The first step is to create a non-profit Medical and Loan Association. To do this, you would a group of people (maybe four) to create a board of directors and you need about $1,000 in legal fees.

The association could be created under the umbrella of an existing organization … but needs enough independence so that it could spin off into its own entity.

The first step of the board would be to edit and finalize the primary description of the plan. This could take up a full evening.

The MS&L association would be a coordinating body. The association exists to define the Medical Savings and Loan and to coordinate educational, charitable and business activities related to the concept.

After finalizing the definition, the association would need to coordinate the editing and publishing of a book. This could either involve a person proofreading what I've written or a person who wants to co-author a book by adding their content. We have to get a book out NOW, and I would prefer just the proofreading option.

Self publishing packages range from $500 to $1000.

I've been unwilling to borrow to pay this fee because I fear I wouldn't recap the investment on an unedited book. If I had an editor and a group to help advance the idea, I wouldn't, I would gladly swipe the credit card and pay the fee.

PS: I don't have the money to pay an editor out of pocket, but would be willing to pay an editor a portion of any profits on the book.

Because time is critical, I think I would want to take the path of publishing a short political pamphlet style book followed by a more detailed fact driven book in a year or so.

The second step of the Medical Savings and Loan Association would be to launch an educational effort. This would involve coordinating public speakers to talk about health freedom.

The Medical Savings and Loan is a ready made platform for anyone who wants to play the role of free market pundit during the 2012 election. Something I have no desire to do.

In its first year, the tasks of the Medical Savings and Loan Association are almost all purely educational and political. If the idea takes root, the association will need to transition into more of a professional operation.

In the second phase, The Medical Savings and Loan Association would continue to define the plan and coordinate educational efforts. The MS&L Association would need to coordinate charitable and business activities associated with the plan.

The mantra of the Medical Savings and Loan is "Those who can self-fund their care should do so. Those who cannot should receive assistance."

This second task involves a great deal of actuarial analysis. The members of the association would pour over financial and medical expense data to help the financial advisors determine when their clients need to seek charitable care. The MSLA would need to work with charities to assure they have funds to provide that care.

Since the program has two phases, the association could be set up by anyone, of any background. All it needs is four or five people who can muster up enough money to pay the legal and filing fees to start a non-profit.

If the idea takes hold, it is likely that the first group would get spun off and replaced by professional health care administrators.

I imagine myself being spun out of the picture in the second phase.

My ambition is to expose the insurance-pool model of funding health care as fraudulent and anti-market. I would love to be either the author or co-author of a book on this subject.

I do not believe that the free market is about people living in isolation. Free market business activities, by their nature, are group activities.

If there is no-one in the United States, other than me, willing to discuss health freedom; then all efforts I put into the program are pointless.

I find the idea of writing a book that does not go through any form of peer review abhorrent. Likewise, I am appalled at the idea of trying to promote an idea that only backed up by my personal research.

The correct path is to find a group of people interested in advancing health freedom (ie, restoring America). The group would discuss the issue, the present the subject to the world at large.

The left is going to lampoon the Medical Savings and Loan as a system in which people are forced to stand alone. To avoid this criticism, the program simply must go through peer review and have a group supporting it.

The free market is not about people standing alone. It is a system of exchange that holds the individual in high esteem. The free market gives people control over their body, their mind and their property in order to facilitate exchange within a group.

I have decades worth of work on the issue of health freedom. If a small group of people wanted to spend some time exploring the concept of health freedom in detail, they might be in a position to make a big difference.

But there is absolutely nothing I can do if I am forced to sit here in complete isolation and poverty.

Anyone interested can contact me on Community Color.

My Take on Candidates

2011-12-16T01:41:00.001-07:00

Ron Paul is the only candidate in the field who has a clear vision of where America should be. The problem is that he does not have a plan for getting us from here to there.

You can not free people who've been raised as slaves. The left would hit hard and heavily with loud OWS style diversionary protests, while Paul flounders in conveying the vision of freedom to the people.

Mitt Romney, like Barack Obama, is an organization man. Just as his daddy installed Mitt in influential jobs, I see Mitt installing his cohorts in key political positions ... and we will end up with ObamaCare run by corrupt Republicans instead of ObamaCare run by corrupt Democrats.

A vote for Romney is a vote for the health care exchanges, which the establishment Republicans will force down our gullets while they actively suppress debate.

I had really big hopes for Michele Bachmann, but so far she's come up one "L" short in all the debates.

I fear that Ms. Bachmann has spent too much time attacking Obama and not enough time developing ideas. Ms. Bachmann would probably be a front runner if she came up with bold ideas like Herman Cain did. Instead, all we see are negative attacks.

Much as I dislike Obama's policies, I really hate when people attack the President of the United on a personal level.

Oddly, I am reluctantly falling into the position that the technocrat Newt Gingrich will be the best president.

Oddly, the reason I think Gingrich would do well as a president is that he seems to have the ability to see issues from different sides ... a trait one wants in a president.

Overall, though, I don't see any of the candidates putting America back on the road to freedom.

Of course the only real way to get back on that road would be for patriotic Americans to put the nation back on track.

If there was a strong idea-backed pro-freedom movement in the upcoming years, Gingrich is the one most likely to act on the ideas. The organization man Romney is the least likely to respond to ideas.

So, I am reluctantly putting Gingrich on the top of my Christmas list ... although, deep down in side, the debate left me feeling that the Republicans are coming out with too little, too late. I don't see any of the candidates putting America back onto the track of freedom and prosperity.

Of course, that is not the job of the president. Restoring America is the job of the people. I just hope the Republicans avoid the mistake of nominating a president who will block the path to restoration.

End of Internet Shopping Season

2011-12-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well folks. the end of the Internet shopping season is upon us. If you fail to get your orders in before Friday it is highly unlikely that they will get shipped before Monday.

As a good free marketeer, I took a few stabs at grabbing a piece of the Christmas shopping pie: The page AFountainOfBargains.com has a datafeed with hundreds of thousands of products from top internet stores. You can browse the list or compre prices.

AFoB also lists Daily Deals from select merchants. The site also inclues categorized index of stores in the Community Color Store of the Day program.

My past experience is that December 15th is pretty much the end of the online shopping.

Sadly, this year, I failed to draw traffic into my little online efforts.

Oh well. I now need to figure out what to do next.
I confess. I spent myself into a financial jam trying to drum up interest in the the Medical Savings and Loan project.

I would love to go back to that project. Health freedom is the most important issue of our generation and I have important things to say about the issue.

I've been unable to find anyone to talk with on this important issue.

Anyway, I am in a funk. The Christmas season is ending. I had several hundred thousand visitors to the community color sites, but I failed to get any financial traction, and need to come up with a new plan.

Last Online Shopping Days for XMas

2011-12-14T13:41:00.001-07:00

Black Friday is not the big day for online shopping. The make it or break it time for ecommerce happens about two weeks before Christmas.

Online shopping is driven by shipping schedules.

If you shop on Friday, there is a good chance the package won't get shipped until Monday ... and a very good chance that the package won't show up before Christmas.

BTW: If you haven't sent out Christmas Cards ... you better get them in the mail before Friday.

Today (12/14) and tomorrow (12/15) are the last two days of the shopping season. Here is a categorized list of the Community Color Stores of the Day.