The Gold Report: Doug, we are at your conference in Tucson, Arizona, the day after former Congressman and presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul gave the keynote speech to a sold-out crowd. How did you two first meet?

Doug Casey: It was about 30 years ago. Ron used to attend my Eris Society—named after the Greek goddess of discord—meetings in Aspen, Colorado. Everyone from Sonny Barger of the Hells Angels motorcycle club to Burt Rutan, inventor of SpaceShipOne, would meet to discuss ideas.

TGR: In those 30 years, have Ron Paul’s ideas changed much?

DC: Ron believes he was born a libertarian. He’s right. I believe in Pareto’s law—the 80-20 rule. I prefer to think that 80% of humans are basically decent, which is to say that they were born libertarian oriented. But it takes a while to crystallize what that means. Ron and I, and many others, have moved beyond gut libertarianism to a structured, intellectual libertarianism.

Some people see the same things we see through a totally different lens, however. Those people tend to be the other 20%, or perhaps 20% of that 20%, or even 20% of that 20% of that 20%. They range from being wishy-washy on ethical subjects to being sociopaths or even outright criminals. These people are at the opposite end of the spectrum from us in every way.

TGR: One of the things Ron Paul mentioned last night is that a true libertarian advocates for the freedom of everyone to do what he or she wants as long as it’s not hurting someone else. This includes people who don’t agree with your views.

DC: Exactly. As opposed to busybodies who want to tell everybody else what to do. They think they know best and are perfectly willing to put a gun to your head to make sure that you do what they think is right.

TGR: We are meeting in the midst of a government shutdown. Ron Paul called it a paid holiday for federal workers. Are we doomed to an endless cycle of these manmade crises?

DC: I would like nothing better than to see the shutdown go on forever, but unfortunately the government is only shutting down things that inconvenience people, like monuments and national parks—things that should not be owned by the government to start with. I wish they would shut down all their praetorian agencies, like the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. Shut down the IRS. I am much more concerned about Silk Road being shut down than I am the US government being shut down.

TGR: Do you think regular people care whether government is shut down or not?

DC: Over half of Americans are living off the state, receiving more from the state than they’re putting into it, which makes them receivers of stolen property. They see the government as a cornucopia and therefore a good thing so they want it to be open and sending them checks.

The situation is fairly hopeless at this point, and it’s likely to get a lot worse before it gets better. Trends in motion, in whatever direction, tend to stay in motion until they hit a crisis, at which point they transform into something else. This trend is not only in motion, but it’s accelerating in the wrong direction.

TGR: Ron Paul said that the charade on the American people is that the two parties are different, that actually it’s not that we need a third party, but we need a second party. Your presentation compared the end of the Roman Empire to the state of the US today. Is the current political system doing a better or worse job of protecting freedom and liberty in the US compared to ancient Rome?

DC: The founders consciously modeled the US after Rome, everything from the way government buildings look to having an assembly and a senate. We are similar right down to the Latin mottos. When you model yourself after something, you eventually tend to resemble it. That partly explains why we are on the slippery slope of constant wars, less freedom, more power for the executive, destruction of the currency, and barbarians at the gate. Another part is the natural tendency of all empires to reach their level of incompetence and then decline. It’s to be expected. Entropy dictates all things wind down and degrade.

As I pointed out in my speech, America has gone through periods of what paleontologists call “punctuated disequilibrium.” Things evolve gently in one direction and then experience massive change very quickly. I’m afraid that the US might be approaching a phase similar to the one the Romans experienced before Diocletian made himself emperor. He completely changed the character of Rome; he believed that in order to save Rome, he had to destroy it.

As we go deeper into this crisis—of which we’re just currently in the early stages—there’s every chance that the American people are going to look for a savior, a strong man, probably a military person because Americans love and trust their military for some reason. I see the military as not much more than a heavily armed version of the post office, but I suspect that we’ll find someone who is the equivalent of Diocletian, who will change the whole nature of society radically in the wrong direction.

TGR: Do you believe in changing from within the system, or just getting out from under the system? Would you ever run for public office?

DC: I think the situation is beyond retrieval at this point. People generally get the government they deserve. At this point, Americans are much more interested in freebies than they are in personal freedom. They are like scared little rabbits. They’re much more interested in safety than they are in personal liberty. I think they’re going to get what they deserve good and hard over the years to come. I would much rather watch what goes on in the US on my widescreen TV in the lap of luxury in another country than be in the epicenter of things here. The system is beyond the point where it can be reformed.

And, no, I have zero desire to run for office. Plus, anyone who runs for office disqualifies himself for being in a position of power by the very fact that he wants to be in that position. My friend Harry Browne always used to say that when he ran for president on the Libertarian ticket, the first thing he’d do if he were elected would be to quit—at least after rescinding all outstanding Executive Orders and recalling all the troops. Anyway, even if Ron Paul had been elected president and if he tried to make the necessary changes, the public would have rioted, Congress would have impeached him, and the heads of the CIA, FBI, and the military would have sat him down and subtly intimated that they have the power, and he shouldn’t do anything they don’t want done—or undone.

I don’t think a change can be made at this point. I’m just interested in seeing what happens when we really get involved in a really big crisis, which I think is going to happen in the next couple of years, as we go back into the trailing edge of the economic hurricane that started in 2007.

TGR: One of the things that has come up as part of the shutdown debate is health care. Do you have health insurance? And, how would you control healthcare costs?

DC: First of all, I don’t call it health insurance because it doesn’t insure your health. That’s something that you’re personally responsible for, not some third party. I call it medical insurance. Just as I call the FDA the “Federal Death Authority,” because it probably kills more people every year than the Department of Defense does in a typical decade by slowing down the approval and hugely raising the cost of new drugs and technologies.

Getting to back to your question, no, I don’t have medical insurance. If anything goes wrong with my body, I’ll treat it as I would if something goes wrong with my car. I’ll find the best doctor elsewhere in the world where medical costs can be 20% of what they are in this country. I’ll pay for it in cash. I don’t want to have to fight with an insurance company, or the government, about what’s covered or not.

The whole idea of everybody having medical insurance is a corruption that arose during World War II when companies used insurance to attract workers. Then we had Medicare and then Medicaid. These are the reasons costs have escalated. In a free-market society, medical costs should have collapsed and gone down in the same way as the cost of computers has collapsed and gone down even as they’ve gotten vastly better. People think they need the government in medicine, but it’s been totally counterproductive. It’s done the opposite of what was intended.

TGR: One of the things Ron Paul mentioned is that his speeches on college campuses, including UC Berkeley, have been some of the most well received. Do you have hope for the next generation?

DC: Yes, there is reason for hope over the longer term. Generally, older people in this country have voted all these “benefits” for themselves, and they don’t want to have their rice bowls broken. The younger people are being turned into indentured servants to pay for these benefits. Young people are figuring this out.

Another worrisome thing is that a lot of young people have indentured themselves by taking on huge amounts of college debt; $1.2 trillion is the current number. They can’t even discharge it through bankruptcy, although many are unable to pay it. More and more are deciding that doing four years in a college to experience indoctrination from wrongheaded professors is a complete misallocation of both their time and their money.

If I had to do it again, I definitely would not go to college. I recommend others skip college, unless they need to learn a specific technical set of skills, such as doctoring or lawyering or engineering or a science where you need lab work. Most kids today, however, are going off to college for things like gender studies, political science, and English. These are things you should learn on your own, on your own time, at no cost. Meanwhile, avoid the indoctrination of the creatures who hang out in university faculty rooms who teach because they are incapable of doing anything else.

TGR: Ron Paul intimated that we’re in a middle of a revolution. You said that the solution to our problems would be less command and control and more entrepreneurs. Are the small business owners the real revolutionaries?

DC: They could and should be, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to start a business because of the regulatory and tax environment in the US. Smart people are leaving in droves. There just aren’t enough left to change things. I’m afraid we’re just going to have to let things take their course.

The main function that Ron Paul has served is educating people, which is necessary and laudable. But the odds of him succeeding in changing things are close to zero.

TGR: You talked about the role of education, and Ron Paul mentioned the power of the Internet to circulate new ideas based on the theory that ideas have consequences. Your ideas are having an impact thanks to the power of the Internet. Does that bode well for the future?

DC: It does. The Internet is the best thing that’s happened since Gutenberg invented movable type and the printing press; it’s a marvelous thing. That’s exactly why the government wants to regulate the Internet. It sees it as a huge danger.

TGR: Does suppressing ideas ever work? Is it working in China?

DC: Actually, in many ways China is freer than the US, but that’s not one of them.

If you are a businessman and you keep your nose out of politics, it actually is freer. You’ll have less taxes, less regulation in China than you would in the US. But instead of emulating the free part of China, the US government is trying to copy the Internet restrictions because it sees the Internet as a danger to the existing order. And they’re right.

TGR: But didn’t the governments of Middle Eastern countries find out that ideas have a life of their own, and they find a way to spread despite attempts to shut them down?

DC: They do, so let’s hope for the best.

TGR: Finally, Ron Paul said that things are worse than the government will admit, and the idea of economic growth this year is a dream. He said we need to be serious, but not despondent. Make financial plans, but have fun doing it. Do you agree, and are you having fun yet?

DC: I am having fun. I’m doing this not because I need the money, but because it’s amusing and it’s good karma to sow dissention in the ranks of the enemy.

TGR: Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

DC: Thank you.

The Best of Doug Casey

To lead us on this journey, who better than Paul Krugman to act as our guide. For in the fantasyland of paper money, only a distinguished professor of his caliber can win a Nobel Prize in Economics. Such a feat is equivalent to Barack Obama (who routinely kills innocents with drones) wins the Nobel “Peace” Prize! In paper money fantasyland, everything is turned upside down.

The bureaucrats, media, and financial gurus are all in a frenzy because of yet another ‘debt ceiling crisis’. The crisis is not that the debt ceiling has been reached (for something like the 95th year in a row)…No, the crisis is that it may not be raised!! Remember now…fantasyland thinking.

Ivory tower Krugman looks down on Earth and does not like the ramifications of this crisis:

Financial markets have long treated U.S. bonds as the ultimate safe asset; the assumption that America will always honor its debts is the bedrock on which the world financial system rests…

Normal thinkers will find it interesting that a U.S. bond would be the “ultimate safe asset”. In other words, they would find it fascinating that an instrument of debt from government would be considered an asset at all.

This debt is not from private individuals or companies, who have to voluntarily provide a good or service in order to pay it back. No…no…no…the government must forcefully extract the money from the shrinking number of productive Americans in order to pay it off. So not only is the “ultimate safe asset” an instrument of debt, it’s also immoral to boot.

The immorality extends way beyond direct taxation. The government also “honors its debts” by creating money out of thin air. So not only are Americans taxed directly, they’re also taxed again in a much sneakier manner. They’re taxed indirectly, by having their purchasing power taken away when more money is created.

Americans see the results of the theft later on, with incessantly rising prices. However, they’re trained to blame other things like “greedy businessmen” or wars, or whatever else. They also have the government constantly telling them that price rises are only an illusion. “Two-percent” is the mantra. If you’re seeing more, you must be the crazy one.

A clear thinking person would think to him/herself: “Wait a second. Aren’t the debtors getting the shaft as well? Whenever the government prints money, the debtors get paid back in depreciating money. Aren’t they the crazy ones?”

And the answer is “Yes, the lenders are crazy.” But this is fantasyland, where everyone thinks and acts in very bizarre ways.

What happens if everyone starts to wake up from this bad nightmare?Well, that causes concern for Nobel Krugman:

Now suppose it became clear that U.S. bonds weren’t safe, that America couldn’t be counted on to honor its debts after all.

Notice the words “suppose it became clear”. Truth and clarity are the enemy in fantasyland. Krugman’s job is to keep the smoke from the clearing. He and his Keynesians are a never-ending fog machine.

This is what happens, should the fog clear:

Suddenly, the whole system would be disrupted.

Ahh yes, “the system”. I spoke about elites and “the system” just yesterday. Status quo is King (when you’re the King).

Krugman tries to stay positive though, should there be a disruption:

Maybe, if we were lucky, financial institutions would quickly cobble together alternative arrangements.

No!

The world has suffered enough from all of the cobbling together. We’ve had enough of getting together and forming one failed “system” after another.

It’s time for these self-proclaimed Einsteins to get out of the way! It is time for the marketplace to (once again) determine what shall act as currency.

For thousands of years, people all over the world freely chose to transact in gold and silver. Chances are excellent that the market would choose to uphold that tradition, especially with the technological advances that have exploded over the last 50 years.

No longer would people have to lug around gold and silver coins or bars. Our digital world can function beautifully with sound money that cannot be created at the whims of the professors.

The banks would have their role to play. They can go back to acting as lawful warehouses of our money. They store our money and charge a fee for the service. They may not lend what has not been explicitly been granted to them to lend. And they may not lend a single ounce beyond that. Our digital technologies can monitor any banker much better than ever should they try to break their contracts.

Like the separation of Church & State, there absolutely must be a separation of Bank & State. The rewards of the latter will be just as spectacular as the rewards we’ve reaped from the former. We could escape the paper money fantasyland that has spun completely out of control.

But we cannot rely on “luck” for honest money to return. It takes strenuous effort to spread the ideas that clear away the fog. Luck is surely welcomed, but the focus is education. People must understand.

Spread the ideas!

Reprinted with permission from Economic Policy Journal.

Mark Twain’s insight comes to mind as one observes the panic of Beltway Republicans over the latest polls in the battle of Obamacare.

According to Gallup, approval of the Republican Party has sunk 10 points in two weeks to 28 percent, an all-time low. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, approval of the GOP has fallen to 24 percent.

In the campaign to persuade America of their Big Lie — that the House Republicans shut down the government — the White House and its media chorus appear to have won this round.

Yet, the truth is the Republicans House has voted three times to keep open and to fund every agency, department and program of the U.S. government, except for Obamacare.

And they voted to kill that monstrosity but once.

Republicans should refuse to raise the white flag and insist on an honorable avenue of retreat.

And if Harry Reid’s Senate demands the GOP end the sequester on federal spending, or be blamed for a debt default, the party should, Samson-like, bring down the roof of the temple on everybody’s head.

This is an honorable battle lost, not a war.

Why, after all, did Republicans stand up? Because they believe Obamacare is an abomination, a new entitlement program this nation, lurching toward bankruptcy, cannot afford.

It is imposing increases in health care premiums on millions of Americans, disrupting doctor-patient relationships and forcing businesses to cut workers back to 29 hours a week. Even Democratic Sen. Max Baucus has predicted a coming “train wreck.”

Now if the Republican Party believes this, what choice did the House have except to fight to defund or postpone it, against all odds, and tune out the whining of the “We-can’t-win!” Republican establishment?

And if Republicans are paralyzed by polls produced by this three-week skirmish, they should reread the history of the party and the movement to which they profess to belong.

In the early 1960s, when the postwar right rose to challenge JFK with Mr. Conservative, events and actions conspired to put Barry Goldwater in the worst hole of a Republican nominee in history.

Kennedy was murdered in Dallas one year before the election. Goldwater had glibly hinted he would privatize Social Security, sell the Tennessee Valley Authority and “lob one into the men’s room at the Kremlin.”

After his defeat of Nelson Rockefeller in the California primary assured his nomination, Goldwater was 59 points behind LBJ — 77-18.

The Republican liberals — Govs.

Rockefeller, George Romney and William Scranton — to the cheers of the Washington press, began to attack Goldwater for “extremism” and failing to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

At the Cow Palace convention, liberals demanded Goldwater rewrite the platform to equate The John Birch Society with the Communist Party USA and the Ku Klux Klan, which had murdered four black girls at a Birmingham church in 1963 and three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss., that same summer.

Goldwater rejected this stinking outrage, declaring, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” And, so, the liberals all abandoned him.

One man stood by Goldwater. The two-time loser Richard Nixon, who had not won a race in his own right since 1950, campaigned for Goldwater and the party longer and harder than Barry himself.

And what became of them all?

Bill Scranton packed it in 1966. George Romney was trounced in 1968 by Nixon, with Goldwater’s legions at his side, in New Hampshire, and quit the race two weeks before the returns came in.

Rockefeller, who had spent a career calling Nixon a “loser,” lacked what it took to challenge Nixon in any of the contested primaries.

And, lest we forget, one other national Republican spoke up for Goldwater and conservatism in that 1964 humiliation, the retired Hollywood actor and impresario of GE Theater: Ronald Reagan.

Nixon and Reagan would go on to win four of the next five GOP nominations and presidential elections. In the one convention Reagan lost, 1976, the right, as the price of its support of Gerald R. Ford, demanded that Nelson Rockefeller be dumped as vice president.

Done. Rocky was last seen flipping a middle finger to the delegates happily marking “paid” on his account.

Prediction: The people who fought the battle of Obamacare will be proven right to have fought it, and America will come to see this.

And the people who said, “We can’t win!” will never win.

America is at a turning point.

If she does not stop squandering hundreds of billions on liberal agenda items like Obamacare and if she do not end these trade deficits sucking the jobs, factories and investment capital out of our country, we will find ourselves beside Greece, Spain, Illinois and Detroit.

Even if America disagrees, as in 1964 when it embraced LBJ’s Great Society plunge to social and economic disaster, Republicans need to stand up — current polls and corporate Republicans be damned.

If the right is right, time will prove it, as it did long ago.

The data harvesting program, first reported by The Washington Post Monday, collects address books from email and instant messaging service in an apparent attempt to map social circles across the globe. Online communication services frequently expose an individual’s contact list when that person signs onto their account, sends a message, or connects a remote device – such as a cell phone – to a computer.

An internal NSA PowerPoint presentation indicated that the NSA’s Special Source Operations collected 444,743 email lists from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail, and another 22,881 from other services. The documents note that those numbers show what the NSA collects in one day, meaning the intelligence agency could collect more than 250 million lists each year.

The NSA is capable of collecting approximately 500,000 so-called buddy lists from live-chat services and the “in-box” displays from web-based email services, according to the Post.

Two NSA sources told the Post the intelligence agency uses the data to identify international connections and then find smaller, more nefarious connections between suspected criminals. The collection relies on secret deals with foreign telecommunication companies, with NSA agents monitoring internet traffic outside the US.

The sources refused to estimate how many Americans are snared in the dragnet but did admit it could number in the tens of millions. An unnamed official was careful to mention the collection comes from “all over the world,” and “None of those are on US territory.”

Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the NSA “is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets like terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers. We are not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans.”

While the earlier revelation that the NSA indiscriminately collected millions of American phone records ignited outrage, email address books could provide much more detail about a person’s life. Address books often include home and work addresses, as well as business and family information.

The potential for abuse could also be much higher, with intelligence agents able to look at a close diagram of someone’s life, including political and religious organizations. False impressions could also be created if someone neglects to delete entries belonging to friends they are no longer associated with.

Because the collection takes place overseas, the NSA does not require nor did it receive permission from Congress or the secret intelligence court that authorizes such collection. One US official said “the assumption is you’re not a US person” when the communication passes through “the overseas collection apparatus.”

Still, despite common past reports indicating otherwise, an official said the privacy of US citizens is safeguarded by “checks and balances built into our tools.”

The US companies involved in the data program deny that were consulted or informed about the NSA’s policy. This is possible, the Post noted, because address books are recorded “on the fly” when a user crosses an internet switch, not from servers at rest.

“We have neither knowledge nor participation in any mass collection of webmail addresses or chat lists by the government,” said a Google spokesman.

Microsoft and Facebook offered similar denials, with the Post speculating that Yahoo lists were intercepted more often because the email service automatically leaves connections between users unencrypted, although a company representative said that policy is expected to change in January 2014.

NSA documents prove that the intelligence agency collects so much information that its vast data facilities are nearly overwhelmed and the intake has been suddenly stopped by “emergency detasking” orders. While the agency has sought to delete information it deems no use for, at least three documents report on efforts to build an “across-the-board technology throttle for truly heinous data.”

Reprinted with permission from Russia Today.

The outage lasted less than a day, but it proved what many already knew, that America had become a nation so dependent on government subsidies that any glitch in the system could lead to total pandemonium.

But if you thought that isolated incident was bad, imagine what could happen next month.

We say next month because the USDA, which oversees the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), has just issued an order to SNAP agency directors calling for their respective States to implement an emergency contingency program because of government funding issues. In a letter obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center food pantry, the USDA is directing state agencies to, “delay their November issuance files and delay transmission to State Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) vendors until further notice.”

What this means is that should Congress fail to increase the debt ceiling this week, come November there will literally be millions of people in the United States who will have exactly zero dollars transferred to their EBT cards.

What will happen to the nearly 50 million people who depend on these benefits to survive?

Think this past weekend and multiply it across the entirety of the United States of America.

In the State of Utah the immediate effect of the USDA’s contingency plan will be a freeze in benefits for 100,000 people. Richard Phillips, a homeless man who depends on the government’s monthly distributions, warned what would happen next:

It’s going to cause problems… because then you’re going to come to find out that you’re going to have people starting to steal and do what they have to do to survive. 

Video Report via The Daily Sheeple:

(Watch at Youtube)

Here is the USDA letter in full:

(click for full size image)

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

In that George Zimmerman looks like the kind of person who might commit a hate crime — or at least has the name of such a person – the investigation into his shooting of Trayvon Martin nearly two years ago remains “ongoing.” So said Attorney General Eric Holder on September 30.

In that Jeremiah Hill does not look like the kind of person who might commit a hate crime — at least by Justice Department standards — prosecutors have all but cleared him of the same in the stabbing death of Army Spc. Tevin Geike on October 5. A review of the known facts in these two cases would make you think Zimmerman and Hill live in two different countries.

Geike was walking down Pacific Highway in Lakewood, Washington, with two Army buddies, Matthew Barnes and Brian Johnson. They were on their way to a party celebrating Geike’s impending discharge from the military. All three of the men were white.

A car cruised by. The five men inside were black. “They were looking for trouble,” an emotionally wrought Barnes told a Seattle KIRO-TV reporter the day after the stabbing. “They were looking for someone to attack.” Barnes believed that “maybe race had something to do with it” because of what the men yelled at him and his pals. “There is a derogatory term that they use for white people,” said Barnes. “It’s cracker and what not. I heard that phrase repeated numerous times.”

“So this is how we treat combat veterans now?” Barnes yelled at the men. The car circled back. The five men jumped out, and, according to the reporter, “One of the five men was most aggressive and stabbed Geike multiple times.” The five men then hopped back in the car and sped away. Initial reporting out of Washington, like KIRO’s, led with the “hate crime” angle. That did not last.

Allegedly, it was only when his buddies saw Hill covered in blood that they learned what had happened. Two of them helped Hill dispose of the knife, and they too were arrested. The other two are cooperating with the police.

When it became clear that the attackers were fellow servicemen at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Tacoma, prosecutors, with an able assist from the media, began to scrub hate from the narrative. “This was a senseless and sad murder where a soldier killed a fellow soldier for no reason,” said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist just three days after the stabbing.

Lindquist appears to have ruled out a hate crime because the two cooperating black servicemen “said race was not a motivating factor in the assault.” Did he expect them to say otherwise?

According to Lindquist, someone from the vehicle did make  ”an unspecified racial slur towards the men on foot,” but witnesses “could not recall what was actually said.” If that did not provide absolution enough, “The victim’s friends said that the initial slur was the only race-related language used.” But Barnes, who had no reason to lie, had a very specific memory of what was said and told KIRO-TV that these slurs were “repeated numerous times.”

Again according to Lindquist, four of the men got out of the car. “Once it was established that all parties were active duty soldiers,” they disengaged and returned to the car except for Hill who attacked Geike. In his October 6 interview, however, Barnes appeared to have no idea that the killer was a fellow soldier. Nor did the reporter.

Read the rest of the article

As I point out in my book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the NSA; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace that occasionally nudge a weary public out of their numb indifference and into a state of outrage.

Consider the red light camera schemes that have been popping up all over the country. These traffic cameras, little more than intrusive, money-making scams for states, have been shown to do little to increase safety while actually contributing to more accidents.

In most cases, state and local governments arrange to lease the cameras from a corporation such as Redflex, which takes its cut of ticket revenue first, with the excess going to the states and municipalities. Indeed, these intricate red light camera systems—which also function as surveillance cameras—placed in cities and towns throughout America, ostensibly for our own good, are in reality simply another means for government and corporate officials to fleece the American people.

For red light camera manufacturers such as Redflex, there’s a lot of money to be made from these “traffic safety” fines. Redflex, which has installed and operates over 2,000 red light camera programs in 220 localities across the United States and Canada, made $25 million in 2008. In addition to revenue from fines, Redflex also gets paid for installing the red light cameras, which cost $25,000 a pop, plus $13,800 per year for maintenance.

Although these cameras are in use all across America, Chicago boasts the “largest enforcement program in the world.” Since installing Chicago’s 384 red light cameras in 2003, Redflex has made $97 million from residents of the Windy City, while the city has profited to the tune of over $300 million. Hoping to pull in an additional $30 million for the year 2013, Mayor Rahm Emanuel began negotiating a new contract last year with Redflex to install speed cameras. However, contract negotiations for the speed cameras were terminated shortly after it was revealed that Chicago city officials had been on the receiving end of millions of dollars in financial bribes from Redflex. Chicago is now in the process of terminating its contract with Redflex, despite seeming attempts by Mayor Emanuel’s office to delay the process.

One particularly corrupt practice aimed at increasing the incidence of red light violations (and fines) involves the shortening of yellow lights in intersections with red light cameras, despite the fact that reports show that lengthening the yellow lights serves to minimize accidents. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, “a one second increase in yellow time results in 40 percent decrease in severe red light crashes.”

Indeed, those who claim to champion the use of red light cameras in the name of traffic safety are loath to consider reducing the length of yellow lights if it means losing significant citation revenue. An investigative report by a Tampa Bay news station revealed that in 2011, Florida officials conspired to reduce the length of yellow lights at key intersections below minimum federal recommendations in order to issue more citations and collect more fines via red light camera. By reducing the length of yellow lights by a mere half-second, Florida officials doubled the number of citations issued. Contrast that with what happened when the yellow light time was increased from 3 seconds to the minimum requirement of 4.3 seconds at one Florida intersection: traffic citations dropped by 90 percent.

If you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail. Florida is a perfect example. In 2012 alone, Florida pulled in about $100 million from red light cameras operating in 70 communities. About half the profits went into state coffers, while the other half was split between counties, cities and the corporation which manufactures the cameras.

Fortunately, the resistance against these programs is gaining traction, with localities across the United States cancelling their red-light camera programs in droves. In early May 2013, officials in Phoenix, Arizona backpedaled on a one-year extension of their contract with Redflex, with the city’s chief financial officer, Jeff Dewitt saying, “We made a mistake.” Florida state legislators are also considering banning all red light cameras in the state.

What’s the lesson here? Whether you’re talking about combatting red light cameras, banning the use of weaponized surveillance drones domestically, putting an end to warrantless spying, or reining in government overspending, if you really want to enact change, don’t waste your time working at the national level, where graft and corruption are entrenched. The place to foment change, institute true reforms, and resist government overreach is at the local level.

If we are to have any hope of reclaiming our run-away government and restoring our freedoms, change will have to start at the local level and trickle upwards. There is no other way.

This is an annual event, now in its 5th year, each with a different gun.

See the rest here: https://www.youtube.com/user/hickok45

I’ve been at zero a few times, come back a few times, and done it over and over. I’ve started entire new careers. People who knew me then, don’t me now. And so on.

I’ve had to change careers several times. Sometimes because my interests changed. Sometimes because all bridges have been burnt beyond recognition, sometimes because I desperately needed money.

And sometimes just because I hated everyone in my old career or they hated me.

There’s other ways to reinvent yourself. Take what I say with a grain of salt. This is what worked for me.

I’ve seen it work for maybe a few hundred other people. Through interviews, through people writing me letters, through the course of the past 20 years. You can try it or not.

A) Reinvention never stops.

Every day you reinvent yourself. You’re always in motion. But you decide every day: forward or backward.

You start from scratch.

Every label you claim you have from before is just vanity. You were a doctor? You were ivy league? You had millions? You had a family? Nobody cares.

You lost everything. You’re a zero. Don’t try to say you’re anything else.

C) You need a mentor.

Else, you’ll sink to the bottom. Someone has to show you how to move and breathe. But don’t worry about finding a mentor (see below).

D) Three types of mentors

– Direct. Someone who is in front of you who will show you how they did it. What is “it”? Wait.By the way, mentors aren’t like that old Chinese guy in “The Karate Kid”. Ultimately most mentors will hate you.– Indirect. Books. Movies. You can outsource 90% of mentorship to books and other materials. 200-500 books equals one good mentor. People ask me, “what is a good book to read” and I never know the answer. There’s 200-500 good books to read.I would throw in inspirational books. Whatever are your beliefs, underline them through reading every day.– Everything is a mentor. If you are a zero, and have passion for reinvention, then everything you look at will be a metaphor for what you want to do. The tree you see, with roots you don’t, with underground water that feeds it, is a metaphor for computer programming if you connect the dots.

And everything you look at, you will connect the dots.

E) Don’t worry if you don’t have passion for anything. You have passion for your health. Start there. Take baby steps. You don’t need a passion to succeed. Do what you do with love and success is a natural symptom.

F) Time it takes to reinvent yourself: five years.Here’s a description of the five years:

• Year One: you’re flailing and reading everything and just starting to DO.
• Year Two: you know who you need to talk to and network with. You’re Doing every day. You finally know what the monopoly board looks like in your new endeavors.
• Year Three: you’re good enough to start making money. It might not be a living yet.
• Year Four: you’re making a good living
• Year Five: you’re making wealth

Sometimes I get frustrated in years 1-4. I say, “why isn’t it happening yet?” and I punch the floor and hurt my hand and throw a coconut on the floor in a weird ritual. That’s ok. Just keep going. Or stop and pick a new field.

It doesn’t matter. Eventually you’re dead and then it’s hard to reinvent yourself.

G) If you do this faster or slower then you are doing something wrong. Google is a good example.

H) It’s not about the money. But money is a decent measuring stick.

When people say “it’s not about the money” they should make sure they have a different measuring stick.

“What about just doing what you love?” There will be many days where you don’t love what you are doing. If you are doing it just for love then it will take much much longer than five years.

Happiness is just a positive perception from our brain. Some days you will be unhappy. Our brain is a tool we use. It’s not who we are.

I) When can you say, “I do X!” where X is your new career?

Today.

J) When can I start doing X?

Today. If you want to paint, then today buy a canvas and paints, start buying 500 books one at a time, and start painting. If you want to write do these three things:

• Read
• Write
• - Take your favorite author and type your favorite story of his word for word. Wonder to yourself why he wrote each word. He’s your mentor today.

If you want to start a business, start spec-ing out the idea for your business. Reinvention starts today. Every day.

K) How do I make money?

By year three you’ve put in 5000-7000 hours. That’s good enough to be in the top 200-300 in the world in anything. The top 200 in almost any field makes a living.

By year 3 you will know how to make money. By year 4 you will scale that up and make a living. Some people stop at year 4.

L) By year 5 you’re top 30-50 so can make wealth.

M) What is “it”? How do I know what I should do?

Whatever area you feel like reading 500 books about. Go to the bookstore and find it. If you get bored three months later go back to the bookstore.

It’s ok to get disillusioned. That’s what failure is about. Success is better than failure but the biggest lessons are found in failure.

Very important: There’s no rush. You will reinvent yourself many times in an interesting life. You will fail to reinvent many times. That’s fun also.

Many reinventions makes your life a book of stories instead of a textbook.

Some people want the story of their life to be a textbook. For better worse, mine is a book of stories.

That’s why reinvention happens every day.

N) The choices you make today will be in your biography tomorrow. Make interesting choices and you will have an interesting biography.

N1) The choices you make today will be in your biology tomorrow. (hat-tip: Claudia)

O) What if I like something obscure? Like biblical archaeology or 11th century warfare?

Repeat all of the steps above and then in year 5 you will make wealth. We have no idea how. Don’t look to find the end of the road when you are still at the very first step.

P) What if my family wants me to be an accountant?

How many years of your life did you promise your family? Ten years? Your whole life? Then wait until next life. The good thing is: you get to choose.

Choose freedom over family. Freedom over preconceptions. Freedom over government. Freedom over people-pleasing. Then you will be pleased.

Q) My mentor wants me to do it HIS way.

That’s fine. Learn HIS way. Then do it YOUR way. With respect.

Hopefully nobody has a gun to your head. Then you have to do it their way until the gun is put down.

R) My spouse is worried about who will support/take care of kids?

Then after you work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week being a janitor, use your spare time to reinvent.

Someone who is reinventing ALWAYS has spare time. Part of reinvention is collecting little bits and pieces of time and re-carving them the way you want them to be.

S) What if my friends think I’m crazy?

What friends?

T) What if I want to be an astronaut?

That’s not a reinvention. That’s a specific job. If you like “outer space” there are many careers. Richard Branson wanted to be an astronaut and started Virgin Galactic.

U) What if I like to go out drinking and partying?

Read this post again in a year.

V) What if I’m busy cheating on my husband or wife or betraying a partner?

Read this post again in two or three years when you are broke and jobless and nobody likes you.

W) What if I have no skills at all?

Read “B” again.

X) What if I have no degree or I have a useless degree? Read “B” again.

Y) What if I have to focus on paying down my debt and mortgage? Read “R” again.

Z) How come I always feel like I’m on the outside looking in?

Albert Einstein was on the outside looking in. Nobody in the establishment would even hire him.

Everyone feels like a fraud at some point. The highest form of creativity is born out of skepticism.

AA) I can’t read 500 books. What one book should I read for inspiration?

Give up.

BB) What if I’m too sick to reinvent?

Reinvention will boost every healthy chemical in your body: serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. Keep moving forward and you might not get healthy but you will get healthier. Don’t use health as an excuse.

Finally, reinvent your health first. Sleep more hours. Eat better. Exercise. These are key steps in reinvention.

CC) What if my last partner screwed me and I’m still suing him?

Stop litigating and never think about him again. Half the problem was you, not him.

DD) What if I’m going to jail?

Perfect. Reread “B”. Read a lot of books in jail.

EE) What if I’m shy?

Make your weaknesses your strengths. Introverts listen better, focus better, and have ways of being more endearing.

FF) What if I can’t wait five years?

If you plan on being alive in five years then you might as well start today.

GG) How should I network?

Make concentric circles. You’re at the middle.

The next circle is friends and family.

The next circle is online communities.

The circle after that is meetups and coffees.

The circle after that is conferences and thought leaders.

The circle after that is mentors.

The circle after that is customers and wealth-creators.

Start making your way through the circles.

HH) What happens when I have ego about what I do?

In six – 12 months you’ll be back at “B”

II) What if I’m passionate about two things? What if I can’t decide?

Combine them and you’ll be the best in the world at the combination.

JJ) What if I’m so excited I want to teach what I’m learning?

Start teaching on YouTube. Start with an audience of one and see if it builds up.

KK) What if I want to make money while I sleep?

In Year 4, start outsourcing what you do.

LL) How do I meet mentors and thought leaders?

Once you have enough knowledge (after 100-200 books), write down ten ideas for 20 different potential mentors.

None of them will respond. Write down ten more ideas for 20 new mentors. Repeat every week.

Put together a newsletter for everyone who doesn’t respond. Keep repeating until someone responds. Blog about your learning efforts. Build community around you being an expert.

MM) What if I can’t come up with ideas?

Then keep practicing coming up with ideas. The idea muscle atrophies. You have to build it up.

It’s hard for me to touch my toes if I haven’t been doing it every day. I have to do it every day for awhile before I can easily touch my toes. Don’t expect to come up with good ideas on day one.

NN) What else should I read?

AFTER books, read websites, forums, magazines. But most of that is garbage.

OO) What if I do everything you say but it still doesn’t seem like it’s working?

It will work. Just wait. Keep reinventing every day.

Don’t try and find the end of the road. You can’t see it in the fog. But you can see the next step and you DO know that if you take that next step eventually you get to the end of the road.

PP) What if I get depressed?

Sit in silence for one hour a day. You need to get back to your core.

If you think this sounds stupid then don’t do it. Stay depressed.

QQ) What if I don’t have time to sit in silence?

Then sit in silence for two hours a day. This is not meditation. This is just sitting.

RR) What if I get scared?

Sleep 8-9 hours a day and never gossip. Sleep is the #1 key to successful health. It’s not the only key. It’s just #1. Some people write to me and say, “I only need four hours of sleep” or “in my country sleeping means laziness.” Well, those people will fail and die young.

What about gossip? The brain biologically wants to have 150 friends. Then when you are with one of your friends you can gossip about any of the other 150. If you don’t have 150 friends then the brain wants to read gossip magazines until it thinks it has 150 friends.

Don’t be as stupid as your brain.

SS) What if I keep feeling like nothing ever works out for me?

Spend ten minutes a day practicing gratitude. Don’t suppress the fear. Notice the anger.

But also allow yourself to be grateful for the things you do have. Anger is never inspirational but gratitude is. Gratitude is the bridge between your world and the parallel universe where all creative ideas live.

TT) What if I have to deal with personal bullshit all the time?

Find new people to be around.

Someone who is reinventing herself will constantly find people to try and bring her down. The brain is scared of reinvention because it might not be safe.

Biologically, the brain wants you to be safe and reinvention is a risk. So it will throw people in your path who will try to stop you.

Learn how to say “no”.

UU) What if I’m happy at my cubicle job?

Good luck

VV) Why should I trust you – you’ve failed so many times?

Don’t trust me.

WW) Will you be my mentor?

You’ve just read this post.

Reprinted with permission from The Altucher Confidental.

The idea of sitting on a toilet in public is the stuff of nightmares but that hasn’t stopped the Magic Restroom making loos the focus of its new themed restaurant in LA. In fact toilet-themed restaurants are nothing new – Taiwans’ Modern Toilet where chocolate ice-cream is served in toilet-shaped dishes is well-documented. Inspired by its success Magic Restroom owner YoYo Li has introduced toilets as seats and a mix of Asian and western food – like zha jiang mian, named “constipation” on the menu, braised pork over rice, (“smells-like-poop”), and sundaes (choose from chocolate “black poop” or the vanilla-strawberry sundae “bloody number two”) served, of course, in miniature toilet bowls. Revolting and distrubing in equal measure. Freud would have a field day. Isabel Choat

Twin Stars Diner, Moscow

It’s hard to stand out in a city that loves extreme dining, whether it involves vines and amphorae, (Tiflis, the Russian word for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi), moving trams (Annushka), live goats (Shinok), or waterfalls (Blue Elephant) – but Alexei Khodorkovsky has managed to find a new niche, with the opening of his twin-themed restaurant. At the Twin Stars diner in Moscow, all the staff – from waiters to bartenders and even the chefs – are identically-dressed twins. The creepy concept is inspired by a 1964 Soviet film in which a girl winds up in an alternate reality and confronts her twin. Khodorkovsky says it’s been hard to find suitably qualifed twins but the concept is paying off – the 24-hour restaurant is a hit with locals who don’t seem bothered about the issue of whether or not to tip twice.

If Twin Stars represents the new Russia with its modern, funky design, the Expedicia is more traditional Russia – appealing, one imagines, to chest-beating Putin types with a love of the outdoors. In the pricey, survival-themed Expeditsia (“expedition”) restaurant you eat between an orange helicopter parked in the pine trees and a stuffed polar bear scratching itself by a stream.

Guests can sprawl on the roof garden lawn or be beaten with birch twigs in the Siberian banya. Ingredients such as wild duck, fresh berries and mountain honey are flown in from the far north and east of Russia, and delicacies include elk in aspic, smoked venison, sea urchin and sturgeon, served with vodka, sea buckthorn juice or Baikal mineral water. Expect to pay around 1,500 roubles (£30) for a main course; a shot of vodka will set you back around £5 and a fresh juice £9. • expedicia.ru Phoebe Taplin and Isabel Choat

Le Refuge des Fondues, Paris

Why, when in Paris, a city full of great restaurants, you would choose to go for a fondue is anyone’s guess but tucking into the Swiss dish is not the oddest thing about Le Refuge des Fondues in Monmatre. The real weirdness begins when you order your wine – and it’s brought to you in a baby’s bottle, apparently a ruse to avoid French tax on wine served in proper glasses. Gooey cheese and drinking out of a teat – it’s not somewhere you’d want to go on a first date, but it’s been pulling in the tourist crowds for decades. • 17 Rue des 3 Frères IC

Carton King, Taichung City, Taiwan

Taiwan has a penchant for themed absurdity when it comes to eating out. Whether for Japanese assassins lurking in the rafters at Ninja or the drinks served in specimen bottles to wash down one’s turd-shaped bread at the aforementioned Modern Toilet, the food is rarely the primary draw. And so it is with Carton King, a restaurant whose owner was so depressed by the preponderance of plastic in modern life he built an eatery which, instead, promotes the virtues of corrugated cardboard. From the chairs to the plates and even the walls – the whole place is bedecked in the brown stuff. The food, although not fine dining, was more than edible and all that remained of our stewed pork ribs and herb-roasted chicken was the odd greasy smear on our cardboard table. Definitely worth a visit … just remember to leave your lighter at home. Mark Pygott

Barbie restaurant, Taipei, Taiwan

The Far East’s love of all things cute and fluffy is well known; whether it’s actual, real-life cuteness in the shape of Tokyo’s cat cafes, where pet-less Tokyoites go to stroke and play with cats and kittens, or the Hello Kitty phenomenon in Seoul. So the only surprise about Taipei’s Barbie restaurant is that it took so long for someone to come up with the idea. It is staffed by waitresses in bright pink tops, tutus and tiaras, while the chairs are dressed in tutus and there’s enough pink food to sink a Barbie cruise ship. IC

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Here are just some of the benefits of flax seed oil. For the cardiovascular system, flax seed oil helps to prevent atherosclerosis and abnormal blood clotting. It also helps to lower blood pressure and helps to prevent heart attacks. Flax seed oil helps lower total cholesterol by up to 9 percent and helps to lower LDL cholesterol by as much as 18 percent.

For the hair, flax seed oil can help alleviate hair loss and dandruff while helping the hair look shinier. For the eyes, flax seed oil helps to improve eyesight and color perception.

For the immune system, flax seed oil is used in orthomolecular treatment of AIDS. It alleviates some allergies and inhibits the growth of some cancers. Flax is a key component of Dr. Biudwig’s cancer program.

Flax seed oil helps with certain forms of lupus. It also helps lower the amount of insulin needed by diabetics.

Flax seed helps prevent immune suppression after intense exercise. It increases the body’s production of energy and helps alleviate fatigue after exercise while improving stamina.The particular type of oil in flax seed is anti-inflammatory and helps alleviate pain and inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

For the brain and nervous system, flax seed oil helps improve symptoms of depression, improves mental function and is beneficial in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

Flax seed can help alleviate dry skin and some forms of eczema and psoriasis. I recommend adding flax seed oil to any vitamin regimen, especially in the winter, to keep skin from becoming dry and itchy.

Flax seed oil can also help improve the metabolism and absorption of calcium.

Flax seed oil is available in either liquid form or in softgel capsules. Freshness and handling is important. Whether taking capsules or liquid, it is important to taste the oil – you need to break open the softgels and taste them. If the oil tastes rancid, throw it out because it will do more harm than good. Flax seed oil does have an odd taste – it is kind of nutty, but it is good as a salad dressing with apple cider vinegar, or it is good stirred into yogurt.

Whether using flax seed, or flax seed oil, it is important to not cook it. Heat destroys all of the beneficial properties except for the fiber. Also, if using the seed, it must be ground since the seeds do not get broken down in the human system.

Recommended dosage of the oil varies from 1 to 2 tablespoons per day. The recommended seed use is 2 tablespoons of ground seed per day. For those of you on fish oil – rotate flax seed oil into your supplement regimen from time to time – there are good combination products of both fish and flax available.