When Will We, Non-Elite, Understand This?

     Unlike all previous campaigns, I have not allowed myself to become even a little pregnant with a candidate's vision.  Why?

• Both will allow the growing anti-competitive corruption of state-capitalism and the demise of our economy; with the largest, politically connected industries bribing a larger and larger slice of our economic pie through:

1. Direct payments, (the military), 
2. Subsides, (to higher education, trillions for big pharmaceuticals & Bush's Medicare part D)
3. Regulations written by the industry leaders for their own competitive advantage, (Banking, Insurance, Finance) 

     All this while government investment in struggling industries of the future which have allowed for our economic power in the world, are not supported.  These hypocritical crony-capitalist note the "market should decide."  Perhaps their real concern is keeping their own piece of government pie safe?

     When will all of we non-elites understand this?  Tea Party advocates concerned with their taxes paying for bank bailouts and crony-capitalism, and Occupy Wall Street people rebelling against trillions of debt wiped out for the big players but anticipating a life of servitude to pay back their college loans making $7.25 an hour.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

"Just Insert This Amendment Into The Bill Tomorrow, and Be a Good Boy"

     Perhaps I am like the presidential candidates: I am most palatable and popular swaddling around with real, yet very unimportant questions, decisions, and actions; while the great city of Rome burns just off camera.  The largest and most important decisions and actions, say, to come clean about lobbying and campaign millions defiling the processes of democracy, are not seriously discussed, other than to acknowledge, minimize, and effectively dismiss as a real possibility for future action, of course, “It certainly deserves further discussion.”  The processes of a real democracy should loosen the collectives’ hold over our money and corrupted institutions.  Public unions, Too Big To Fail “private corporations” or more accurately, political collectives in finance, insurance, health, education, defense, energy, and others should get a swift kick off the public dole where they benefit their politically powerful institutions, in lieu of being effective institutions which benefit us, …the separated “us,” out in a burning city.  

     Is this not unlike a man, say myself, in a relationship with a girl, say my wife, where we discuss the bills that need to be paid today, the money we are saving, the next apartment we want to rent all while the largest decisions; for individuating through courageous decision and action, into something unique, responsive, and corrective to myself and others, are acknowledge, minimize, and effectively dismiss as a real possibility for future action?  “We should talk more about this if its so important to you.”   My personal collective would have me in support of the collectives’ best practices; producing and raising civil citizens in support of the collective. How shall I address the initial assumption?  Is my choice between a truer existence of vital life, isolation, then annihilation, and, a non-choice of species perpetuation 2.0? 

“To put me in this “whole” you imagine is to negate me.”  Kierkegaard to Hegel

I painfully anticipate your misunderstandings,

Lawrence Feriozzi

Life Is Better

   Life is much, much better than it used to be, within a larger perspective.  I know the economy might tank,... again, and we have false, elite-chosen, non-democratic choices for our next leaders but lets look at the bigger picture.  Only 150 years ago most of our lineage were struggling to get enough food to eat for the day.  Now I can get fat cheaply and listen to great music for the cost of an internet connection.
     We are humans, learning though trial and error.  We have made many mistakes that need major correction, but the general direction is toward a better life for more people in the world, with lots of exceptions.  Radically unjust oppression has been the rule since we "advanced" from bands and tribes to chiefdoms, growing more oppressive in state systems since Mesopotamia.  Nevertheless, given a couple thousand years and things are undeniably looking up.  Even if our American system doesn't last much longer as we know it, I think we will learn, people and leaders will become more responsible, and life will continue to get better for the generations to come, even if it doesn't for ours.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Paul Ryan, Republicans Finally Reign In Debt--Great Timing!

   
      So the Republicans are finally focusing on cutting the debt?  Great timing!  I remember writing my first college newspaper article in 1988 about the destructive debt growth in this country, and being ignored by Republicans thoughout the ensuing decades.  The same decades when the Republicans spent just as much as the Democrats, only they didn't pay for it.  They were "Starving the Beast," or spending big while cutting taxes so government would starve and die.  Well it's dying, just when we actually need it.  Thanks Republicans!  What practically-minded person could think of a worst time, just when the middle class is being foreclosed on?  Their are none, unless your Paul Ryan.


     However, if your an ideologically-minded person, like Paul Ryan, who gets your congressional staff to read Ayn Rand's books about the satanic nature of any government intervention and how monopolies are great; now is the perfect time.  It's a perfect excuse for private industry to step in where governments have proved inefficient and have them privatize Medicare, Social Security, etc.  Perhaps we could let private industry build all our new roads and bridges and let them decide how much to charge us to get to work everyday. 

Randians: Way Too Serious!

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

p.s. I like Rand, her philosophy is useful for perspective and comparisons, but not as an absolutist agenda!

"Govenments' Not The Solution, It's The Problem." Really?

Business Productivity & Profits Grow, Wages Don't

Real Life vs. The Sound-Bite
--In the past 30 years, most Americans have not had a raise above the inflation rate; but have accumulated a consumer debt equal to their yearly income in order to feel like they did.  During this same time, the finance industry, that created and benefited from these conditions, has quadrupled in size, helped send $6,000,000,000,000 of US wealth to other countries via "free-trade," and still has millions convinced that they know what's best for us.  "Governments' not the solution, ...governments the problem," ...right?

Reagan Revolution: The Pendulum Swings
--I believe that was true 30 years ago.  At the time we did have too much regulation in this country, but the pendulum has swung.   Manufacturing employment has dropped from 22% to 16% while finance jobs have increased four fold.  Finance is now our most "vibrant" industry.  This is great for that relatively tiny segment of workers, but it is bad for the rest of us.  Producing massive amounts of innovative "financial products" on speculation destabilizes the economy for the rest of us.  So much so, we were told, that we had to help them out with trillions of our tax dollars because they were, "Too big to fail."

Americans still legitimize the ideology of market absolutism.
Perhaps because we have been complicit through our direct investments or pension fund.  At any rate, this coupled with politicians' campaign funds coming from the finance industry, and politicians' reluctance to hurt the only vibrant industry (finance) left in the US, has led to a unique situation never before seen in the US.

In America's past there would always be robust, imaginative regulations placed on the finance industry because the US citizens demanded it.  For example, various social movements started in response to the injustices of the Congress in the 1890's, or, "Millionaires Club" as it was known.  Eventually these movements became the financial regulations that were being enforced until just 30 years ago, the last of which disappeared just prior to our present financial crisis.  Of course it took the Great Depression for many of these financial regulations to actually be implemented.


Time to wake up, regain some moral vigor and power of resistance before a pandemonium and another unstopped pendulum swing in reverse.  Pendulums are destructive, virtue is in the middle.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Movie Theater Massacre: Fetishizing Status and Notoriety

Get Status

The "Jokers'' Motives? --Were James Holmes recent senseless murders a socially isolated outcropping of evil, or symptoms of a cooler, isolating society which fetishizes status and notoriety?


Our Need to Explain Deludes Us Further --Within days media pundits crafted typical arguments to address the issue;

1. Tougher gun control.
2. Less glorified violence in the media.
3. Better mental health programs.
4. Better security to identify these dangerous individuals before they perpetrate.

Solution: Having and Being a Friend --None of these ideas could have stopped such events, but one may have;

A friend.

Society, Advertisers Promise Status & Friends--As Epicurus and modern Positive Psychologist tell us, the most important factor for obtaining happiness in life is maintaining good, honest friendships.  Advertisers have known this since Epicurus, but having a coke, Lexus, or PhD. won't give me friends. This doesn't stop us from believing it will satisfy this need at a deep level, thus the modern rat race.  (see Status Anxiety)   The extreme path of losing hope for obtaining those things that society promises will fulfill us is perhaps a generalized violence toward society itself.

or, ... Notoriety

Notoriety: The Last, Sad Hope of Obtaining Status

Sincerely,

Lawrence Feriozzi

Who Is James Holmes, the Aurora Shooting Suspect?

As a "quiet and easy going guy,"  I anticipate he didn't have many close friends.  He seems to have been enthralled with the modern Batman narrative which perhaps satisfied him more than anything in the world, besides getting a PhD.  Perhaps when that fell through, his escape into the manufactured Batman reality seemed his best hope for an engaging place of notoriety in this world.

A necessary condition of living a happy life is maintaining close, honest friendships, Epicurus told us.  Perhaps the modern desire to be respected for your notoriety, if not your position, is in its essence a simpler wish to be appreciated and treated nicely,... without a PhD. or senseless mass murder.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

The Conservative Intellectual Tradition In The US

David A. Keene

RATS TAKING OVER THE SHIP--The very wise and seasoned David Keene, NRA President, recently gave a talk at the Citadel which was very enlightening. (click here to view) I have gone over many of these ideas in previous blogs.  His talk was concerning the conservative intellectual tradition and how it has been usurped by new comers, the rats, to the Republican party.
 
FIRST, KEEP THE RATS OUT--In the later 1950's William F. Buckley helped to fuse disparate groups of anticommunists, moderate libertarians, and traditionalists into a new conservative movement that eventually took the national office in 1980 with Reagan.  However they had to kick some radical newcomers out in the beginning that would have jeopardize this new group's identity.  The Birch Society, extreme libertarians, and Rand's objectivist were forced out.  He made the analogy that when his father opened up a new bar, the first thing his father had to do, was to kick out the drunks that were kicked out of every other bar in town, otherwise no one would want to come.

"Hes' Conservative, But He's Not a Conservative"

Reagan-Our Last Conservative

LETTING SOME RATS IN--After the movement was established, its then "OK" to loosen your standards since you have your core ideas and identity established.  This is what he says happened by 1985 during Reagan.  They wanted to be in power but were not real conservatives, he, and I, would liken them to rats.  At first this is great because you need their votes to win.  But being a victim of your own success became dramatically apparent in the following decades where all kinds of people came into the Republican party that were "conservative, but not a conservative".

"Not conservative because of Hayak, Buckley, or Kirk, ...conservative because they liked Reagan, Gingrich, or Bush"

THE RATS TAKE OVER--These shallow conservatives have in the past few decades over run the ship and now lead the Republican party,--rats reproduce quickly.  Among them are the selfish and greedy Rand, free market ideologues and warmongering neoconservatives.  He points out, as I have, that having a stringent ideology, say of exporting democracy all over the world, is an anathema to being a conservative.  Being a conservative is a way of looking at the world and not an activist agenda.  As Goldwater said, being a conservative is rooted in nature, not an ideology.

Taking Back Conservatism From the Big Government Neoconservative Warmongers

THE RATS ARE SINKING THE SHIP!--About a third of our national budget, 700 billion, is spent on the military to support the neoconservative agenda: all because their leaders want a legacy.  They know international crusades produce legacies.  Libertarians say the growth of the superstate is the growth of the warfare-state.  In this they are correct.  Almost every voice of influence representing so-called conservatives today are rats, including, but not limited to those in the media and the Congress.  It's time for true conservatives who know what I'm talking about to speak up and educate the rats.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

1776: Birth of a More Important Idea: Adam Smith's Free, COMPETITIVE & JUST Markets

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was based on three extraordinary ideas:

1. Freedom: Individuals have the right to produce and exchange products, capital and labor as they see fit.
2. Competition: Individuals have the right to compete in the exchange of goods & services.
3. Justice: The actions of individuals must be just and honest according to the rules of society.

"Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of Justice, is left perfectly Free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into Competition with those of any other man or order of men." Adam Smith

I assert this three legged stool has only one leg left: "Freedom," as in the highly espoused Ayn Randian, "Free Market" absolutist mentality which is really just government backed mercantilism 2.0.  This is evidenced by our broken world economies where the most powerful use the "free" market to kick the other two legs of Competition and Justice out from the rest of us.
Time to regain some moral vigor and force another revolution to reinstall competition and justice to our political-economic system. 

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Declaration of Independence

 Read & Repeat to Protect Against Tyranny

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of AMERICA.
WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another;

The Virtuous, Marginal Middle

Liberals author the influential narrative in popular culture; songs, film, fiction, etc....

Conservatives hold influential economic and political power; CEOs, business leaders, power brokers, etc....
Thus often the public is left to witness only the polarized encounter of these self-selected and adamant ideologies.  Perhaps their sole point of agreement is dismissing admonitions that, "Virtue is in the middle,"--Aristotle.  

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Men Should Be Free, Markets Should Be Competitive

Men Should be Free, Markets Should be Competitive

Is it a coincidence that one of the most powerful discovery's for peace and prosperity the world has inherited would be harvested in a decades long study of "Moral Philosophy"?  (Adam Smith was a professor of Moral Philosophy before writing "The Wealth of Nations.")  Adam Smith's often quoted, "It is not from the benevolence of the baker...but from their self interest that we expect our dinner.." is not an endorsement of selfishness, but as he saw it an application of the Golden Rule.  Once we give what someone else wants, we get what we want.  In context, it is seen that in order to elicit the exchanges that would benefit ourselves, we must first think of benefiting others.

Our goal should be free, competitive, and just markets not just "free" markets.

Smith would reject Ayn Rand's now popular idea in business that selfishness is a virtue, he saw selfishness and greed as a vice.  Imagine that.  As lust is to marriage, so greed is to capitalism, while lust and greed are bad, it cannot be rooted out of men.  We are both evil and benevolent, so we should be aware of this and make policies appropriate to encourage the later and discourage the former, not have a free-for-all, elite-dominated market just because the elite can dominate.

"Das Smith Problem"

The Germans saw a contradiction between Smith's earlier work, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," which relied on mens' small town benevolence for a good society, and, "The Wealth of Nations'" big city reliance on self interest.  Actually there was no conflict.  Smith combined the two in Wealth and thought that men still had a basic desire to be accepted in a just society which would balance his self interest and enable exchanges which treated people with justice.  But what happens when the society itself encourages greed as a virtue?  We get volatile markets, spooked investors, abuse of personal and public credit and the list goes on.

It is time to stop the ideological ignorance and bring some balance back to our economic and political system.

Below is a continuum of economic thought that might be useful to put this discussion in some context.  It was not until the mid to late 20th century that the Chicago School and other venomous epistemologies used the ideas of "efficient markets" and "selfishness as a virtue" to gut competition and justice from our political and economic systems.

The continuum of faith in free markets:

• Marxist-no faith
• Keynesian-some faith
• Smithian-good faith....I advocate
• Chicago School-great faith
• Austrian School-complete faith
  

I am "post-Chicago," so perhaps "good faith," or an original Smithian, Classical School of economics.  Our goal should be, as Smith laid it out; free, competitive, and just markets not solely free markets.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

The Clone Town Free Market vs. Competitive Markets

Once upon a time we enforced antitrust or competition law in this country.  A time when you could go to a different town and it was actually different.  It had different stores that were owned by different people in the community.  Ownership was local so everything had a more local feel.  Our money more or less stayed in that community as the owners were not conglomerates.  They spent their profits locally, in local businesses.

Now, of course, it's different; a majority of US towns look the same.  "The Clone Town," as it has come to be known, have the same corporate names and all profits leave town to be redistributed via the corporate headquarters.


National branding and central management has gone a long way toward efficiently manufacturing our wants and then satisfying them--to the detriment of your local community.

Civil Anti-Competition Lawsuit Filings from 1890-2003

Accept for public utilities and patents, we have long had a public policy has been theoretically directed by a single guiding principle: competition.  Only, as seen by this graph, it hasn't been enforced since Johnson.  (Note if this graph was per business it would be much more dramatic.)  As an old school Smithian, Classical School, I believe in free, competitive, and just markets not solely free markets.  I also believe we should enforce the law.

Individuals should be free, markets should be free, competitive, and just, like Adam Smith originally conceived. 

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

The continuum of faith in free markets:

• Marxist-no faith
• Keynesian-some faith
• Chicago School-great faith
• Austrian School-complete faith
  

(I am "post-Chicago," so perhaps "good faith" or an original Smithian, Classical School.  Our goal should be free, competitive, and just markets not just free markets.)

LINKS ON THIS TOPIC

American Independent Business Alliance--Helping Communities & Local Independent Businesses Thrive!

Journal of Competition Law & Economics

Likely made by a Marxist or Keynesian, but it emotes a relevant point for today.

Exploitation & US State-Capitalism

Recycling cotton

Most of the products that empower our standard of living often enable and perpetuate state-capitalist systems of unfairness in the US and worse systems overseas.  Those multinational corporations that can get away with exploiting people in developing countries through their supplier are motivated to do so because we demand higher quality and lower prices.  I don't blame consumers, that’s what consumers do; it’s what makes capitalism the best, most efficient economic system available in the world today.  There is no incentive for either the consumer or the manufacture to reveal exploitation.  It would lower our enjoyment, and their profit received from these products.

This one minute video shows a women sniffing burnt plastic
with her lighter in order to separate plastic for recycling.

"You don't talk to outsiders."

This is our government’s job; they, exclusively, are in a position to oversee and try to remedy these injustices.  Unfortunately our government is by and large captured by these enormous multinational corporations they “oversee.”

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

2011: Big Banks Up 29%, Small Banks Down 43%

St. Louis Federal Reserve President Ballard

Dallas Federal Reserve President Fisher

 Notable, non partisan, economist calling for big bank breakup.

Dallas and St. Louis Federal Reserve Presidents Richard Fisher and James Bullard, itulip's Eric Janszen, former IMF chief economist's Simon Johnson, and many significantly knowledgeable non-democrats call for breaking up the largest banks. This is not something most of the these people would risk saying without good reasons for saying it.

I agree that we must breakup these largest banks to restore real capitalism and competition.  Until these largest banks' parasitic largeness is dealt with, the Federal Reserve, Congress, the President, and captured regulators will continue to enable their dependence on taxpayer's dollars.

Former IMF Chief Economist

Venture Capitalist Eric Janszen

A growing economy since 1972--YES, ...for the finance industry, stagnate wages for ever one else.  The pie has gotten bigger, but our slice stays the same.

These banks shapeshift.  They are libertarians while making a profit, and socialist when needing a Fed fix after a speculative spree.  This is not going to stop by the Fed giving them more money.  Just like a drug addict, this will just enable them and allow an uncompetitive banking system to continue further draining the productive economy.   This same uncompetitive, state-supported "capitalism" occurs at all of the largest companies but the big banks are at the top of the list in trillions of dollars transferring from the productive economy to the greediest speculative finance economy.  Why?  We should remember the several hundred fold increase of politician campaign support that has occurred over these last two decades, in both parties.  What was about 15% of a hundred times smaller pie of campaign contributions in the late 80's, is now 40% of a preposterously larger waterfall of cash coming from the financial, state-supported oligarchy.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi
Neotraditional, fair-minded, conservative

When is a Firm Ideology Good?

When is a firm ideology good?  Never, accept in the underlying empowering assumptions of our Constitution.  If we start dissecting the "truth" of our collective assumptions of the ideal, such as, "all men are created equal" then our entire society will break down into a vulgar relativism and result in an uninspiring chaos.  Do we have a firm basis for "knowing" these underlying assumptions?  No we don't, but I believe them in faith without proof, and also for the above mentioned practical reason.

Given that condition, a firm ideology has a horrible track record of destructive obstinacy. It's practitioner's ideals are the ideals everyone else should be following-if others just understood.  Republicans are saying to themselves, "If they just understood Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, etc. ... they would sign the no new tax pledge, they would allow unfettered free markets," etc....Republicans, your ideals are ruining this country.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi,
Neotraditional, fair-minded, Conservative

Legitimization of State-Capitalism 2.0 & Unfettered Freemarkets Connection?

Wow, was I surprised when The Economist ran a debate between a Harvard professor in support of state capitalism "2.0," as he calls it, and a run of the mill free market professor.  I also thought of the new book, "No One's World" where the author points out how the state capitalist developing economies of Russia, India, & China, did not suffer the downward fluctuations like the Western, state independent economies of the US, Europe, and Japan.

Aside from Marx's evolution of state-capitalism being the final stages of an economy before a final proletariat take over, support of such a system seems so outrageous to my ingrained free market sensibilities.  I took a few deep psychic breathes and was thankful such a view was made explicit, in such a reputable way, being out of Harvard.

Next I started thinking of the prevailing ideological neo-conservative and neo-liberal extreme free market thought and practice of the past decades in business and government, i.e. Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.  How this unbalanced thinking provided the huberous of our 2008 economic crisis and precident for bailouts to the largest financial entities, a little like, you guessed it: state-capitalism.  Hmmm?

I will reluctantly agree, on it's face, that a state sponsored corporation will be better able to compete against other Leviathans sponsored by, say, our Chinese friends.  But there is also something, on it's face, extremely sinister about "my" government essentially picking industry leaders to better compete in a globalized economy.  The risk for abuse seems so high.  No matter, it is the direction we are heading.

Finance & Productivity are Good, Corruption is Bad

The finance industry provides the bricks and mortar for new ideas to become goods and services to be made and rendered.  It helps make the jobs that allow billions of people to eat, have shelter, and exist.  It provides for the efficient allocation of resources and the reduction of risk so businesses will open and provides goods, services, and jobs.

I have no problem with the essence of our modern finance system.

I have a problem with the disproportionate power and influence, aka corruption, the largest corporations assert over our formerly democratic processes in this country.  It is no longer possible to vote against the continued corrupting centralization of this power: both Obama and Romney take a vast majority of their contributions and advise from this well thought out prevailing corporate ideology.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Cornel West, Capitalism, Trustbusting & the 2nd Amendment

All good things.

Modern life is the most complex it has ever been in the history of mankind.  To think simple ideological solutions will solve our most intractable problems is an understandable instinct, but it's also wrong.

Life was easier when I fit into the neat ideological sliding scale of prefabricated political categories defined by today's public discussion.  Problem is these issues are too important and complex to leave in the hands of the world's narrow preexisting categories for political meaning.

I have, as Dr West puts it, "put to death" some of the weakest prefabricated ideas that were made for me as a Republican.  I now have more nuanced understanding of the world.

• Immigration policy in this country is inhuman, irrational, and shameful--it contributes to the "rot" or internal decay that have dismantled all great empires.  It is a "keep what's ours" mentality not based on reality but in selfish fear of losing what we have.
• Free-market capitalism is the best economic system the world has to offer, but the Justice Department needs to seriously ramp-up it's Anti-Trust prosecution and break up our present day oligarchies which have hijacked the democratic process.
• It is no longer possible to vote against this oligarchy of big business and banks; they have essentially captured our government's democratic processes entirely.
• Police should be respected as the critical institution it is in maintaining our tenuous civil order; however, too large of a percentage abuse their power and violate the rights and dignity of the citizens they were sworn to serve and protect.

Because these ideas lack "concision" and  will not fit neatly between two commercials and for other reasons, they are not discussed, debated, much less analyzed before the masses.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

$300 Billion Mexican Drug Cartel v. An Unarmed Citizenry

1st Law needing restoration in Mexico is the people's Right to Bear Arms

While the Mexican Constitution gave citizens the right to bear arms in 1917, nevertheless since the mid 90's the government has made it impossible for a civilized citizen to arm themselves.  Result being no real opposition against the $300 billion illegal drug industry and the corrupt police they purchase.

Give the law abiding Mexican citizen a chance!  Restore their right to keep and bear arms!

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Book Review--Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11

      This is an important, rare book of substance.  So if this book is correct, I have to change a lot of my cynical views about the presidency. 

     Basically the idea of this book is that the presidency itself is more constrained/balanced by a much more active opposition, in several areas. 

1. Congress farms out opposition through special prosecutors and human rights groups by default.  
2. The judiciary reviews the president's actions as never before and corrects what it sees as abuses, i.e. Guantanamo.  
3. Bloggers and the interconnected digital world are breaking critical abuses as the new muckrakers of the media, i.e. Abu Ghraib.  

     This is why little changes from president to president.  Essentially, Madison ideas about balance of power are still active through creating new powers to balance the growth of presidential powers.  Seems to good to be true.  Hmmm....

Establishment Jack Goldsmith, Harvard & the Powers that be

  Out of my own curiosity, I created this outline to contextualize the possibilities of this book being another brilliant paradigm of the status quo;

         “Harvard” in this outline represents mainly people from Harvard, and other leading disseminators of the most influential ideas in society.

1. Harvard presents arguments better reasoned and more articulate than other universities, groups or individuals.
1. They essentially have a monopoly of the best coherence, believability and concision
1. They typically support status quo views by advancing their discipline (They are the status quo which everyone else follows)
1. Supportive universities, groups and individuals
1. Follow unquestioned; always playing catch-up, (They never look to discover alternative explanations which may be very different)
2. Follow, but with a belief of Harvard’s benign dominance (Take seriously the most important duty, i.e. Will Durant,  passing on the heritage that makes us the advanced homo sapiens we are today: our education/culture 
1.  Unsupportive universities, groups and individuals
1. Oppose Harvard and their status quo view because of envy-“sour grapes”
1. Oppose because in good faith believe Harvard malignantly protects essentially their power over society—essentially their society
1. Thoughtful conspiracy theorist who are correct
2. Thoughtful conspiracy theorist who are incorrect 

I am mixed, 80% I follow Harvard's benign dominance theory, 20% conspiracy...but there is no way to tell if I am correct or incorrect?  I'm not smart enough.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Ayn Rand, Chomsky & Everywhere In Between

So many of the best economic and political books today are either great articulations of a one-sided ideology or would make a nice magazine article.  In our political and economic life, anyone can say anything.  Words are cheap and often add to the confusion.  Honesty with ourselves reveals the truth is never the exclusive product or possession of any one person, group, or ideology.

However, there are some actions we could make our government take now, that perhaps most will agree with;

• Act on the will of individual citizens.
• More influence for actual people and less for entities which now disproportionately influence the system.
• Squarely correct your financial irresponsibilities.
• Provide cool-headed, civil arguments in the public arena where more than just the "two" establishment opinions are expressed.

Looking deeper into political and economic abyss has motivated removal of my long-standing American flag aside my desk.  I have always been proud to be a US citizen.  I have put the flag in my desk drawer.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi