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“Three Acres and a Cow,” 1880s British Land Reform &1920s Distributionism
“Forty Acres and a Mule,” Emancipation of Southern Slaves, US Civil War
“One Hundred Sixty Acres and Independence,” American Homestead Act 1862-1976

Human beings are a risk adverse bunch. In fact this seeking of security is the real reason we seek to form bunches. Families, neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, states and nations, as well as churches, synagogues, mosques, social clubs and lodges; the list is almost endless.

The physical issues however, flows from the reality of fallen man. We truly believe that there is safety in numbers, which is true to a point, that point being when the dignity of the individual is replaced with its loss. The more of that individual dignity we lose, the more we evolve into the so-called lesser animals.

In western culture, to make these communities workable, we first created a financial system called banking, in which we believed that a preexisting commodity called money could be managed in such a way as to increase security.

It took some enterprising Scots, enlightened by the Protestant work ethic, to give us a positive model for creating that global shining and secure city on a hill. That merger of banking and enterprise fueled the creation of capitalism, in which risk is controlled through the application of compound interest.

What happens however, if natural risk isn’t covered by the simple compound interest spread?

Simply put, human beings seek their security through other means; most commonly land, as described at the introduction. Since during the Age of Discovery and the open frontier all land was initially the property of the state, and hence land grants of varying orders, became the mechanism for development to take place, this is beyond the pale of capitalism and compound interest.

Tags: Third Opening of the West, capitalism, agriculture, Earl Butz, John Wesley Powell, Industrial Age, Individual Age, USA, water, distributism

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‘It's not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to have no dreams.'

Later in life, I would learn that this is, and should be, the mantra for the true CEO of SELF.

— Herman Cain, Quoting Dr. Mays, his Morehouse College President

Yes, yes, yes it is a play on words; using the German language. This week we will spend our time looking at Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Economic Plan. When progressives finally begin to take Mr. Cain seriously as a presidential candidate, they will begin speaking with both the German and the American meanings, Nein! Nein! Nein! — No! No! No!

One of those mainstream media news-commentaries from Monday found connections from Wisconsin to Virginia allegedly linking Cain’s campaign to the billionaire Koch brothers and their bankrolling of American’s for Prosperity for which Cain did some work. How about from Washington State, or Alaska to Florida, or Maine to California or Hawaii, Alabama to Wyoming, but two points just make a straight line, they do not make a journalistic linking continuum, except in simplistic Nein! Nein! Nein! — No! No! No!

The 9-9-9 Plan is the most profound taxing program in a century and a half; since reconstruction after the Civil War; since the rise of evolving social progressivism; since the demise of the nineteenth century definition of liberalism; I could go on.

Speaking about his plan on 8 August 2011 Herman stated, If ten percent is good enough for God, then nine percent should be just fine for the Federal Government.

But why should the evolving, progressive Collective Elitists lose what is left of their remaining sanity over a simple plan to revamp the Federal tax system in the United States?

Tags: Herman Cain, 9-9-9 Economic Plan, God, Grizzly USA, Believe in America, Mitt Romney, agriculture, military industrial complex, Environmental Imperialism, Entrepreneurial Pioneer Area, GDP

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The whole world is so greedy for bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.
— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, March 1948

Since our consumer world has begun to outwardly head into the ditch in 2007, there as been much said, pontificated, argued and discussed about the reasons for our current muddling economy and direction for the future. Little however, has been articulated regarding the need for economic competition and decentralization, especially federal government decentralization.

Presidential candidate Rick Perry in his book Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, indicates his focus on the national government, but seems to look at one of the trees but misses the centralization forest. This of course has been the Republican mantra for as long as I can remember as they, along with the Democrats, “progressively” centralize more and more power at the national level.

Agriculture, Education, Environment, Healthcare, Housing, Military, Social Security and Transportation are just a few of the centralized bureaucracies that drive the national agenda. With largesse, contrary to all the rhetoric to the contrary, and essentially by definition, begets a lack of competition.

Centralization however is really the way we humans choose to solve our community and cultural problems throughout recorded history. Since the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament until the passage of ObamaCare in the United States, to the Eurozone attempts to unify distinct nation states, into a financial precursor to another attempt to create the human Babylonian utopia, we believe we are significantly collectively smarter than we are individually.

Tags: Aldo Leopold, competition, decentralization, Natural Law, Collectivist Elitists, Laissez Faire Scoundrels, F A Hayek, Congress

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America’s ongoing jobs depression - which is what it deserves to be called - is the worst economic calamity to hit this nation since the Great Depression.

— Robert Reich, Clinton Administration Labor Secretary, economist

It seems that Reich’s comments are something every American, and probably most citizens of the developed world can unite upon. The problems we face seem to be agreeing on the means to combat, fix, or lessen the jobs problem.

The Chronicle has some of the smartest readers in the human universe. If you read these columns on a weekly basis you are going to have to work your way through two to three times the verbiage that accompanies the more popular pundits and commentators. Mainstream media doesn’t pay people to develop specific topics; it just takes up too much space that could be used for advertising revenue. This is becoming an even more important symbol in the Internet age, as click to external commercial sites become the major means of web support.

I have been told I am a smart guy, even a close personal friend of over a quarter of a century has said I need to print and distribute business cards that say: “Genius For Hire!” I would say in the total picture, I do have a few unusual gifts that are somewhat unique, that we touched upon last week, which I seem to be able to see or comprehend things in a way other people can’t see, or more likely don’t want to see. This is sort of a disharmony in which many people seem to be afraid to look for. Others have called it an obtuse way of looking at life.

This week we will begin to develop a theory that just sort of popped into my mind as we have watched the development of the bear stock market and the various pundits, commentators and analysts’ response to this developing reality.

Tags: evolution, Adam Smith, GDP, FED, Joseph Schumpeter, enterprise hydrologic cycle, Entrepreneurial Pioneer Area