@ Bluto

My thought is that severe economic pain is what is needed to get everyone's attention. If the free shit stops because there is no more money, people will begin to wake up. That waking up process will be part of the pain as people try to burn and pillage.

Yep, America was stronger and more white during the 1930's. In my view that is why the pain will be more significant now. There are at least 4 generations now alive who know nothing but prosperity. The pain that is coming is something the folks from the 30's could have managed and dealt with because they had skills and resources. Today not so much. We need a forest fire to clear all the debris/fuel that has been left to accumulate.

What other hope is there?

"It invariably degenerates into "crony capitalism"

that requires a powerful central state behind, in order to happen. that is why the anarcho-capitalists theorize exactly that, the privatization of more or less everything, and the reduction of the power of the central state to almost nothing through unlimited secession.

i know many consider the anarchocapitalists a bunch of madmen. i think instead the idea is excellent, and has solid historical roots. too bad most people dont understand what anarchy is, and almost all consider anarchy an utopia. which it isnt.

Carlos Menem was also quasi-populist from the right (but considered himself a "peronist") who also pushed free-market reforms and the like. He ended up as a "crony" capitalist in the end, with many of his policies contributing to the collapse in 2001.

One hopes that Javier Milei will prove to be a better man. But I'm not holding my breath on this. Only time will tell if he works out or not.

Dependency upon social welfarism from the government is an addiction that is very difficult for most people to overcome. This is the primary reason why, although I hope for the best, I think it likely that he will fail.

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Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!

In Europe, where Milei is described as far-right, uncouth populist, this is seen as a catastrohy by our leftards.So it's probably a good thing.

Absolutely fascinating posts by Vox Day & Bronze Age Pervert on this -

https://voxday.net/2023/11/20/ideology-i....

Quote:

The political scientist Martin Gilens, aided by a small army of research assistants, gathered a large data setnearly two thousand policy issues between 1981 and 2002. Each case matched a proposed policy change to a national opinion survey asking a favor/oppose question about the initiative. The raw survey data provided information that enabled Gilens to separate the preferences of the poor (in the lowest decile of the income distribution) and the typical (the median of the distribution) from the affluent (the top 10 percent).

Statistical analysis of this remarkable data set showed that the preferences of the poor had no effect on policy changes. This is not entirely unexpected. What is surprising is that there was nozilch, nadaeffect of the average voter. The main effect on the direction of change was due to the policy preferences of the affluent. There was also an additional effect of interest groups, the most influential ones being business-oriented lobbies. Once you include in the statistical model the preferences of the top 10 percent and the interest groups, the effect of the commoners is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Peter Turchin, END TIMES: Elites, Counterelites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, 2023

and this

https://mansworldmag.online/the-populist....

Quote:

And so the logic of this is irresistible to economic populist parties once in power for some time, regardless of their initial rhetoric about the pauperization of the proletariat finally coming true through the vehicle of mass migration. If your position is the poor and conservative many against the decadent and predatory Elite and rich, why wouldnt you come to see millions of foreign poor decent family people as your allies? Economic populists, even when they have open nationalist and ethnic rhetoric in their beginnings, will always abandon this in favor of importing new clients, and it is rational for them to do so. In many cases they dont in fact have specifically racial, or national or ethnic-cultural language even by the way: many rightists are dumbly misled when a leftist starts to inveigh against globalism, the IMF, international Anglo-Liberalism, the transnational elites, and many such things, into thinking that such a person must surely want to preserve the demographic and cultural characteristics of a particular country or region. But thats almost never the case: importing millions of Paraguayans, Peruvians, Bolivians in Argentina, or migrants in Basque Country or Ireland may actually come to be seen as yes we are importing good family people who will stand with us in native solidarity against globalism, Capital, and Neoliberal atomization. And that is in fact what happened.

To me - Argentina is what the USA will be in the near future. It's a hellhole of social justice warriors and mass immigration where normal hardworking TALENTED men are stripped of their assets and taxed into oblivion to support the 'poor' & downtrodden women and immigrants. And Milei may have good intentions, but just like the USA - you would need to totally destroy the existing power structure and kick out all of the immigrants to save the nation - and the only way that happens is thru Civil War. (sound familiar ?)

All these things are inter-related - the depopulation bomb, mass immigration by Leftists to get new communist voters, the deification of women and vilification of men (young men especially) (also because women almost exclusively vote communist/leftist) - these are all unsolvable problems absent total destruction of the current social and political system.

And voting is FACTUALLY absolutely useless (see quoted post above).

Except - voting with your feet. Or your hands. You cannot force young talented intelligent young men to be your slaves forever - at some point they leave your nation to its own insanity and move elsewhere OR they simply stop working altogether (hence the 7 million young male NEETs now in the USA). I don't know where the balance point of all that is - but at some point - if enough young talented hardworking young men abandon ship, that ship rolls over and sinks drowning almost everyone onboard.

And right now - its all un-fixable. The things that need to be done to reverse course would never be accepted in modern society - hell - half the readers here wouldnt agree to them - kick out every immigrant, repeal the right of women to vote, close the borders and destroy no-fault divorce, stop all defense spending other than that needed to enforce the borders, close down the military completely ... I can hear the whining already :) Just like how the de-population bomb ends with a massive theocracy of Mormons Amish and Muslims - the ironic thing is - once the Leftists run out of immigrants and women to vote for them, we are going to end up with a society that enforces all the things I listed above ANYWAYS.

Guys like Milei or Trump or Bolsonaro are not going to change things. And like Karl has pointed out countless times - if We dont have the balls to do the necessary things - there are some guys coming who will :)

Remember the Cycle of Prosperity?

Hard times make strong men;
Strong men make good times;
Good times make weak men
and weak men make hard times.

The hard times, they are a'comin.

If he is recognized as a threat, the threat will be neutralized.

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Blessed, Grateful and Living a Dream

Gianmarko wrote..

"It invariably degenerates into "crony capitalism" . . . that requires a powerful central state behind, in order to happen.

Not at all.

It requires a weak and/or corruptible state, that is unable or unwilling to create or enforce mechanisms preventing fraud, economic predation, collusion, etc., etc. Such practices lead to accumulation of sufficient economic power by these interests that they can (and do) wield influence and power over a weak government. Only a strong gov't that has (and is willing and able to use) its powers to prevent such practices is able to also prevent its "capture" by such interests.

It is also a characteristic of "capitalism" that an efficient, well-run company can accumulate monopolistic levels of economic power even without utilization of such "shady" practices, and this, too, poses a danger of "capture" of the levers of gov't power. Only a strong gov't can prevent such occurrences.

The fallacy of capitalistic "perfect competition" as taught in Econ 101 also applies to the concept of "anarcho-capitalism". Without clearly defined and enforced boundary conditions of acceptable economic behavior by participants, the system does not function as theorized. A strong government, strong enough to establish and enforce proper economic behavior, thus becomes a "necessary evil", which, unfortunately is fraught with dangers of its own.

Thus the existence of the perpetual quandary of gov't: It must be strong enough to exert great levels of control over forces that could be detrimental to the society, yet weak enough that it cannot exert undue control/infuence over the lives of the people. So far, no one's come up with a workable solution.

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Oh there's a solution.

The people must enforce it when necessary. Which the Founders understood.

Thus the Second Amendment.

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@Tickerguy -

Sure, it's a solution, but has it worked out for us?

As of now, it can only be considered to be a "theoretical solution", and not a "workable solution".

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That which nobody has used isn't "theoretical" if the reason for it's lack of use is a lack of balls -- or outright consent in which case it shouldn't be used.

And it is.

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One thing keeps ringing in my year: Corruption
We often talk about this or that political/economic point of view as "good' or "bad", often disconnected from corruption.

There is no economic or political system that seems work with high levels of corruption. I have a feeling that most system would work (not necessarily the same) without corruption. Politics/Power tend to attract the wrong kind of people, sociopaths and their followers, much more than honest people trying their best to make the system work.

I have not been able to see much of a difference in sociopaths from the right or from the left. They both behave about the same but "dress-up" their narratives quite differently. What they say are just tools for their own private benefit and have not problem to state the opposite of what they are doing. done or will do, if necessary.

Argentina's corruption is not in a vacuum. External forces contributed and sustained the status quo. There has been "socialistic" politics to keep the country under control and allow the looting going by "non-socialistic international interest" that benefited from the situation.

The Kirshners, supposedly populist and leftist, actually worked for many years helping big banks repossess assets from bankrupt citizens. It seems they did the same in practice when they got to power. They talked a lot about helping the poor, when at the same time, created more poverty and kept external interests looting going.

Argentina never had a communist government. Peron was an anti-communist creation of the Argentina's elites, copying from the Europeans of the 1930's. Peron represented a form of "political vaccine" against communism. Peron was sent by the Army (created and controlled by the Argentinian's elites), to learn as much as possible from Mussolini and Hitler's fascism (AKA "National Socialism").
It worked "too well". Peron was intelligent and talented/charismatic. At some point he was removed from power by the same Army elites that put him in power probably because he stopped following orders (maybe his ego got too big and thought to be more powerful that the group that installed him into power?).
Interestingly, CIA released some documentation years ago showing CIA's assets protecting Peron out of the country. Argentina's arm forces elites were trained at the US Army "Escuelas de Las Americas" and was part of the US's anticommunist campaign in South America. The "Cold War" was not that cold in Argentina (remember the "Dirty War").
So, talking about Argentina's socialism and trace the social/economic decline of the country across several decades without also acknowledging the political/economic/military struggle semi-hidden in it will be incomplete. Argentina's current sad state is the product of a complex struggle that involved also the USA and the Soviet Union/Cuba.

Going back to current state of affairs, most of current inflation appears to have been created by "Alchemy" with currency conversion. On one hand capturing all the dollars from exports and paying the exporters in pesos on the other. So all the exports were paid by Argentinians with inflation.
The importers had the opposite deal, they were getting the dollar to import at 1/2 the price from the government. The international corporations with business locally were able to take also their dollars out of the country at 1/2 the price. The rest of the printing went on keeping the unproductive masses quiet allowing the looting going.
As all the "Alchemy" was happening, most Argentinians were blocked from taking any dollars out of the country or having international bank accounts with dollars from Argentina. Argentinian had to pay and could not protect themselves form the inflation debasing if possible.

Milei (like Trump) will have plenty of resistance from the status quo (Argentinian version of deep state?). The corruption level of Argentina is colossal. The chainsaw used as a campaign symbol by Milei appealed to a large number of Argentinians that were sick and tire of government's abuse. He will need it to be successful.

@Peterm99

No, thats a fallacy. you dont need a strong government to have a functioning society.

When you decide to have a tennis match with a friend, you dont have referees, chair umpires, federations, prizes, judges. you just agree to play and you do it in fair and sportsmanlike fashion without need to cheat, or without having an actor with absolute power to enforce the "rules".

and there are a lot of things you do, every day, that do no require strong governments.


in fact, it is exactly the opposite. you stop having a functioning society the moment you have a strong government.

competition is just one of the factors.

@Gianmarko -

Yes, one can have interactions within a circle of honest, trustworthy individuals that require no external enforcement mechanisms to ensure adherence to rules, but assuming that such interactions can always extend beyond a limited circle is, IMO, simply absurd utopian thinking.

To my knowledge, never in history has there been any human society larger than family or fairly small tribal-type units in which all players always behaved in an honest, trustworthy manner, not seeking their own advantage at the expense of others in one way or another. Some mechanism of enforcement of proper behavior is always necessary, whether it is peer or social pressure, commonly accepted moral/religious dictums, etc., etc. However, in the final analysis, a mechanism to compel either adherence to the accepted "rules" or effective removal of rule-breakers from society must exist.

If you can provide a reference to any large, functioning, successful society without a governing mechanism having such powers having ever existed, I'd love to read about it.

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It is my belief that non-corrupt government serves primarily to regulate morality. This takes the form of social mores and criminal activities, and the form of cooperative action in defence of one's community.

Thus, honest government serves little or no purpose to a populace capable of regulating their own behaviour. Any argument that government is required to impose such limitations on society as would improve the behaviour of the citizens, is actually arguing the citizens are in capable of acting in a manner consistent with free society. There are, of course, obvious conclusions to be drawn here about that make up of populations which successfully self regulate.

Many of the founding principles of the United States appear to me to recognize this self regulation, not the least of which being a jury of your peers in not only criminal, but also civil disputes. Of course, when your jury is composed of a bunch of gimme-dats, you lose that regulation, and you wind up with ridiculous verdicts, and ridiculous awards.

As an aside, corrupt government serves primarily to regulate business activity for the benefit of a subset of the population.

If the power of the government is drawn from the delegated sovereignty of the people, and the people are greedy, entitled, corrupt, or otherwise lack the integrity required to provide for their own well-being and that of the community they're a part of, then what you have is worse than a corrupt king. The power structure which develops between a corrupt regent and his powerless serfs, will inevitably rob both sides blind, and the king will allow it as long as he can luxuriate in his appropriated wealth. Sadly, in America, 'we the people' are both sides.

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Behold the field which once bloomed with mercy and compassion, fucks and forgiveness; see that the earth has been salted. Nevermore will those crops be harvested here.

I didn't choose it

Quote:

If he is actually representing the people of Argentina he will probably be removed from office by the globalists in any way possible i.e., scandal or assassination.

He's probably safe as can be. I don't expect anything good from anyone who's "elected."

While I would like to believe that this development in Argentina makes a return of President Trump more likely in 2024, my fear is that Dementia Joe or Hair Gel Hitler will miraculously receive 135 million votes in November 2024. I have zero doubt that they will crank up the vote fraud machine to 11 and beyond any attainable level of legitimate non-Dem votes. RIP the former US of A.

A few things to note:

-People doing subsistence labor (picking cardboard and bottles from dumpsters to sell by the weight for recycling) voted for the candidate: why? "I earn my money honestly. The government will not save me. I prefer to be left alone". Half the people voted from this guy in the poorest neighborhoods of Gran Buenos Aires. It is like Trump winning in Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

-The socialist experiment failed completely. The options were either degenerating into Venezuela or trying something different, albeit risky. Could not have happened before this point of total failure.

- Argentina is essentially catholic with evangelicals being second. Most people do not go to church, but the values from Catholicism are strong. The continuous attack on family, abortion, inclusive language, "me too", cancellations, etc did not prevent it to showing up at the ballot box. The vice president (Vicky Villarruel) is a pro life, pro market, goes again the romantic view of the armed insurgency of the 70 and considers Che Guevara for what it was (an assassin and criminal). Many want her to be the president. This is on of the first times that I see a vice president add real value to a formula.

- By the way, the Pope said he would not travel to Argentina if this guy won. But he would go if the people that voted same sex marriage, gender policies and abortion did. Just wondering why people does not go to church....

- The impulse was done by young people (under 25) that were mocked as "pubertarians" and sent to drink the chocolate milk by the "wisers". Now, when you have a bunch of young people that know that they will get nothing from the goverment, that have to live with their parents, that they cannot dream of a family or a home, that see emigration as the only option, the "I will give you nothing, but I will take from you as little as possible" start to make sense.

- The current goverment is as corrupt as you can get. Even with suspicions of being tied to narcos. So, between the crazy and the thieves people jumped on the crazy.

- It was a ploy by the government that backfired. They lifted this "crazy" guy by getting him invited to TV programs, etc, to divide the opposition. It almost worked. The quick political reflexes of former president Macri to offer an alliance with him the day he lost the first round is what made a difference.

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Life is Rock and Roll
A stairway to Heaven,
and an highway to hell

Fascinating viewpoints.

I still fall-back on Heinlein's "An armed society is a polite society."

Duels in the street with simple, easily understood rules. Violate the rules to win and one gets shot anyways, so there is a basic, animalistic reason even the dumbest and most corrupt can understand.

@Peterm99

"If you can provide a reference to any large, functioning, successful society without a governing mechanism"

yes. this planet.
i routinely buy stuff from all over the world, for instance. legal protections when you are buying in china, for example, are virtually zero, and this is true more or less always when buying outside your own country, and evrn when buying in your own country, what sort of protection gives you the government, apart taking some money off you in taxes with the flimsiest of excuses?

i have bought literally thousands of items abroad and in 99% of cases the transaction went smoothly.

the protection afforded to people by strong governments is an illusion. i am sure for example many israeli would have something to say less than positive on the matter.

But is he pro-us enough for the three-letter-asshats to leave him in power?

We're hearing that now Argentina will align with USA instead of BRICS - that's a change. Wonder if the three letter agencies had anything to do with that election?

Looting Argentina will let them kick the economic can here one more time.

" The impulse was done by young people (under 25) that were mocked as "pubertarians" and sent to drink the chocolate milk by the "wisers". Now, when you have a bunch of young people that know that they will get nothing from the goverment, that have to live with their parents, that they cannot dream of a family or a home, that see emigration as the only option, the "I will give you nothing, but I will take from you as little as possible" start to make sense."

Kind of like New York City. Yep, for like the past two decades.

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Mission Complete

I saw that Argentina is not joining BRICS after all. I'm not sure what that means. I would think the best was for Argentina to go would be to both do business with BRICS AND do business with the West. Who says it has to be either/or?

Vox has some good points. But I think he is also missing the point to a certain extent. Robert Malone and the guy with the "CoffeeandCovid" substack have a different but possibly better perspective on the Argentinian election:

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/anarch....

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/kill-su....

One more point about WEF. It is not a monolithic entity. My previous Congress person agreed with many of the positions I have about social economic policies (just don't talk to her about the vaccines), particularly my idea of using the fracking revolution coupled with automation-driven return of manufacturing to the U.S. (making us both "Saudi America" as well as "Asia-export America"), which is not what I expected from someone who was in the WEF youth group. So there ARE some members of WEF who are pro freemarket and pro-liberty after all. I'm not sure what to make of all of this.

Another point to keep in mind about Vox Day himself is that he seems to harbor as much contempt for individual liberty and self-ownership (in the Randian/Rothbardian context) as the most radical leftist. I agree with his Geo-political analysis and I'm generally in favor of his concept of nationalism. But he really is not a friend of liberty in any meaningful sense. One needs to keep that in mind when reading his blog.

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Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!

Vax also opposes free trade in general. Karl advocates a certain level of protectionism that makes sense. But Vox appears to be all in for an economic autarky that simply is not possible short of something like molecular nanotechnology. Some industries are inherently global due to the economies of scale. For instance, it is simply not feasible for each and every country to manufacture its own semiconductors and commercial airliners (again short of Eric Drexler's molecular nanotechnology).

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Its all in the mitochondria.

Soylent Green is people!