ללא מחבר No Author

The Winners Write the Economics Textbooks…

Those Lying Textbooks

By 

March 30, 2011

The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. It was founded by Congress in 1913 to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Over the years, its role in banking and the economy has expanded.

The paragraph (italicized) introduces a booklet published by the Federal Reserve, The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions (9th edition, 2005). It has been in print continuously since 1939.

This paragraph is universally believed among the intellectual elite in the United States. It is believed by virtually all academics, in every social science. You cannot find a college textbook published by any major publishing firm in either introductory economics or American history that does not rest on the acceptance of the truth of this paragraph.

One of the difficulties that critics of central banking have, all over the world, is that academic economists are almost universally supportive of central banking.

To understand why this is the case, we must understand the economics of banking as an aspect of the economics of cartels.

  1. All modern banking systems are based on government licensing and regulation.
  2. All licensing and regulation systems create barriers to entry.
  3. All government-created barriers to entry create cartels.
  4. All central banks are enforcement agents of the national banking cartel.

No chapter on central banking in any introductory or upper division economics textbook published by a mainstream publisher discusses central banking in this light. The chapter on central banking is kept several chapters away from the chapter on money and banking. The two chapters are not cross-referenced.

This has gone on ever since the end of World War II. It may have gone on before, but the textbooks of that era are difficult to locate. University libraries throw out old textbooks. This makes it difficult for historians of thought in any field to write histories of college-level opinion.

[Note: libraries also do not bind popular journals. It would be impossible to write an accurate history of American social thought without access to the Reader’s Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, the Ladies Home Journal, and Cosmopolitan. Yet there is no easy access to any of them. This is why books on American social thought are mostly histories of what academics have written about what they perceive as important trends marked by best-selling books, movies, and a few public opinion polls.]

THE ECONOMICS OF CARTELS

All schools of economic opinion have much the same criticism of cartels. Read the chapter on cartels in any college-level introductory economics textbook. The analyses in all of them will be about the same. Cartels are presented as organized groups of self-interested producers who use government intervention to keep more efficient producers out of the market. These associations oppose price cutting by individual firms. They seek to create agreements within the industry to refrain from price cutting. All schools of economic opinion regard this as being against the interests of consumers. Cartels promote actions in restraint of trade.

The standard chapter on cartels identifies the cartel as an aspect of monopoly. A monopoly is defined as a single seller that extracts an economic surplus by restricting production, thereby enabling it to charge a price higher than that which it would charge if it sold all that it could produce. A cartel is a monopoly system based on more than one producer.

Economists recognize that few if any monopolies can exist without government intervention. (The perennial exception, Arm & Hammer’s baking soda, is never discussed. It deserves at least a master’s thesis.)

No cartel comes to legislatures with this message:

We want you to pass laws against companies that offer lower-priced goods to buyers. Such offers reduce our profit margins. We want to maximize our net profit by keeping retail prices high. We cannot keep innovative forms out of the market, but you can. We want you to pass laws against the sale of goods unless these firms agree not to sell at prices lower than those set by our organization.

Instead, it comes with this message:

The public is being exposed to low-quality goods that put people in danger. If the legislature stands idly by, allowing inexperienced and unqualified producers to exploit the ignorance of the public, the common man will be exposed to serious risks. The best way to protect the public is to require all products to meet basic standards of quality, and to require all producers to be certified by law. The government should set basic standards and require all producers to meet them.

The cartel then writes the standards, so that new, under-funded competitors are kept out. The legal fees for getting authorization to sell a low-cost product will keep most new firms out of the market.

The chapter on cartels offers a detailed account of how the cartel seeks government intervention in its program to restrain trade by restricting entry into the market. The textbook encourages the student to think through the implications of the cartel’s argument in favor of restricting entry. It presents this appeal as a self-interested quest for higher profits at the expense of consumer choice.

None of this analysis is applied to central banking.

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.

‘Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Be Thy Food’

My Expulsion from Medical Practice

Censorship and economic ruin threaten dissenting physicians

by Dr. Albert Louis

(OMNS Feb 14, 2021) It’s a very bizarre state of affairs when, as a doctor for over 30 years, I suddenly find myself completely isolated from people I know, and from humanity. In this situation, there seems to be no way to help with healing or caring or treating, because I have been expelled like a priest excommunicated from the church. I have been cancelled.

This happened because I was not conforming to the religion of medicine. I said things that were against the perceived modus vivendi. I was immediately suspended and completely and utterly cut off, as if I were a dangerous, evil person.

This sense of doing wrong eats into your guts. It is like you have done some kind of severe sin, where you have done something so bad and so awful, that you can never be recuperated or saved because you’ve gone against absolute authority.

Now, this authority is determined and written by AHPRA, the medical board of Australia which produces the code of behavior. [1]

This code of behavior was not something I had contradicted in public. I hadn’t attacked or injured a patient. I had posted on Facebook statements which were inimical to the system, because I criticized issues about the system which were not good.

Looking outward into the world beyond medicine, I have learned that the best companies are run with their employees feeling a group spirit, where the team is heard, understood, and appreciated.

But over the past two to three years, when working in medical practices, I’ve seen no such thing as a team spirit. I found modern medical clinics in Australia to be like workhouses, where the doctors are consumed with input and output of patients. The only thing that the practice owners care about is a throughput of patients to give an indecent profit.

So doctors effectively become part of a cattle market that accepts as many patients as possible to be treated with a preset path of investigations, drugs, and referrals, and are quickly released. Beyond that, the doctors must also have good marks on social media to make sure that the patients return.

This medical meat market lacks the previous dedication of the medical profession to treating or caring about patients. It seems that, the whole system has become so computerized and automated that it has become the “fast-food” modernization of medicine.

Apparently, there is no such thing as medical practice in the absolute sense anymore. Caring goes out of the window. Nowadays, a patient arrives, and it’s in and out within five minutes, and all the patient gets is a drug – often an antidepressant!

Considering our modern world, I realized that this new concept of medical practice is part and parcel of what is happening in the larger society. It seems that we no longer have a society that even cares about itself.

In medical lectures and webinars I see health professionals giving lip service to the need for patients to be looked upon with a certain sense of care by the doctors — the therapeutic agents. Yet this seems an utter hypocrisy because doctors nowadays are more concerned about the efficacious use of investigational processes and therapeutic agents than a direct relationship with the patient.

In fact, there’s no such thing as a partnership in medicine anymore, even in functional medicine. This has gone out the window because society and particularly the medical system frowns upon anything to do with mind, body, or with healing itself.

People are eating the wrong kinds of food because doctors have not been taught nutrition in medical school, and have not learned that food is one of the most powerful therapeutic agents. People are eating themselves to death by the toxic foods that they get from their local stores.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment, marginalization, and alienation due to the need to keep separate have increased, and have accelerated to the extent that there is a significant increase in mental illness.

This is because priority is placed on COVID-19 itself. In medical practices, other illnesses are being left behind and people are no longer being treated to the extent they were previously for chronic illness, heart disease, and cancer.

In this COVID-19 epidemic situation, the simple nutritional supplements that could prevent COVID-19, such as vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, and hydrogen peroxide sprays are looked upon by the medical establishment as being useless and are banned. This is also the case with social media who rely on “fact checkers” who have not been educated in nutrition.

Hippocrates said “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food.” This applies to an excellent diet that provides the essential nutrients while avoiding excess sugar and processed foods with empty calories, as well as safe and inexpensive vitamin and mineral supplements. It can also apply to drugs that are effective against COVID-19 and do little harm such as hydroxychloroquine/zinc and ivermectin. If everyone would take the vitamin and mineral supplements (vitamin C 1000mg 3x/day or more, vitamin D 5000IU/day, magnesium 400 mg/day, zinc 20 mg/day, etc.) we could end the pandemic in a month. [2-7] But any doctor who says these things in public will be cancelled.

This epidemic has been handled as if the governments in charge are following rules from some unknown puppet master. Each knows how to follow the rules, and the rules are such that every government is being taken for a ride and they don’t even realize it. I am referring to individual governments who do not realize they are being taken for a ride by the profit-seeking medical establishment. Is it the WHO, the drug companies, or are we all responsible?

I started listening today about the need for sending vaccines to Africa, Egypt, and India. This was on the BBC and they were talking so eloquently about the need for vaccines, particularly for health workers. These vaccines have been put out in a rush without the full testing that should be done before a vaccine is given to large populations. The mRNA vaccines are quite new and may have unforeseen consequences and yet the medical authorities don’t seem to care. Already many adverse effects are being reported and ignored.

And what could really help Africa and India is not being talked about. Even when hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are being given they’re not being widely discussed. What they did talk about on this particular BBC presentation was the fact that over 2 billion people, particularly in Africa and India have sanitation problems. There are so few latrines that many people die from cholera. Also one billion people have no bathing facilities. If philanthropists really cared, instead of focusing on vaccinations and billions of dollars for drug companies, they should be providing education, latrines, clean water and bathing facilities, and excellent nutrition and vitamin supplements to the poor!

The international and USA media make no connection between the fact that people are going to get COVID-19 simply because they haven’t got the immune strength to defend themselves against a virus, any virus! And what about the new COVID-19 variants that may be able to evade current vaccines? Virus variants are nothing new, that’s how viruses propagate, and that’s why the annual flu vaccines aren’t universally effective. Bottom line – the immune system empowered with adequate nutrition and supplementation will likely provide excellent protection — as a strong immune system can generate new antibodies faster than new vaccines can be developed!

Most medical doctors and especially the media, or should we say the “propaganda industry,” don’t know about the social determinants of health — education, low psychological stress, good hygiene, excellent nutrition. They just think that the vaccine is a magical cure, which allows everyone to ignore other solutions. This will likely continue as long as the media suppress relevant information and medical professionals avoid learning about nutrition. This is utter absolute stupidity and hypocrisy.

(Editor’s note from Andrew W. Saul: Normally I include a brief “about the author” statement here, but in this case, if I did so, Dr. Louis would be in even more hot water than he or she already is. Suffice to say that, as a journalist, I opt to protect my sources. To that end, Dr. Louis is a pseudonym. But the doctor, an Australian, is very real indeed)

 

References

1. Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) https://www.ahpra.gov.au

2. Downing D (2020) How we can fix this pandemic in a month. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n49.shtml

3. Mercola J, Grant WB, Wagner CL (2020) Evidence Regarding Vitamin D and Risk of COVID-19 and Its Severity Nutrients, 12:3361. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/11/3361/htm

4. Holford P, Carr AC Jovic TH, et al. (2020) Vitamin C – An Adjunctive Therapy for Respiratory Infection, Sepsis and COVID-19. Nutrients 12:3760. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/12/3760/htm

5. Rasmussen MPF (2020) Vitamin C Evidence for Treating Complications of COVID-19 and other Viral Infections. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n25.shtml

6. Gonzalez MJ (2020) Personalize Your COVID-19 Prevention: An Orthomolecular Protocol. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n31.shtml

7. Doctor Y, et al. (2021) Nutrition to Treat and Prevent COVID-19. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v17n03.shtml

 

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

 

Find a Doctor

To locate an orthomolecular physician near you: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n09.shtml

 

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

This article may be reprinted free of charge provided 1) that there is clear attribution to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, and 2) that both the OMNS free subscription link http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html and also the OMNS archive link http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml are included.

From OMNS, here.

Jewish Outreach VERSUS Lifnei Iver: Rabbi Avraham Edelstein

NEW from The Laws of Outreach! Lifnei Iver

by  | 

There are several practical applications of the principle of lifnei iver to kiruv situations. May someone be invited for a Shabbos meal when he will inevitably drive there? May one make a shidduch for a couple who will not keep the laws of family purity? May one invite a co-ed group

to a sleepaway weekend that will probably bring about forbidden intimate contact? May one organize a mixed dance to prevent Jews from going to a similar dance that would cause intermingling with non-Jews, and perhaps contain more inter-gender improprieties overall? May one give someone something to drink or eat if he is not going to say a berachah? In Chapter X, we will also deal with the related issue of teaching Torah to a non-Jew.

Due to the complexity of this sugya, we will begin with a summary of the concepts, followed by a more detailed analysis of the mitzvah of lifnei iver. In subsequent chapters, we will then discuss some of the practical aspects of the prohibition of lifnei iver, including inviting those who will drive on Shabbos, making a shidduch between secular Jews, and giving someone to eat who will not make a berachah on the food.

Please click here to continue reading Chapter VI: Lifnei Iver

Please click here to purchase a copy of the Laws of Outreach.

 

Please refer to the archives below for our previously published chapters of the Laws of Outreach:

Preface to The Laws of Outreach

Chapter I: The Mitzvos of Kiruv

Chapter II: Kiruv as a Rescue Mission

Chapter III: Categories of Transgressors and Our Obligations Toward Them

Chapter IV:  Contemporary Non-Observant Jews

Chapter V: Halachic Applications of Tinokos Shenishbu in our Time

 

_______________________________

OlamiResources.com is honored to present free to the Olami Community and beyond, Rabbi Avraham Edelstein’s new landmark sefer, The Laws of Outreach. We are featuring the sefer to the readership of OlamiResources.com in downloadable installments over the next few months. We are greatly appreciative that Rabbi Edelstein has kindly offered to share this important publication, including extensive Hebrew footnotes, with rabbis, educators and mekarvim worldwide. Please click here to purchase a copy of the Laws of Outreach.

From Olami Resources, here.