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The Indomitus Report
19 September 2004
Being Sovereign
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?...Still one thing more, fellow citizens -- a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801
Self-government is the government of each individual by himself. I believe it is the only wise government that may ever be frugal. If once we choose to give up government of ourselves, what may we expect?
History has answered us. We may expect tyrants in various forms and guises. Some will be monarchs claiming the divine right of kings. Some will be magistrates creating laws where none exist and interpreting constitutions that were written in plain language. Some will be legislators, trampling a man's freedom in the name of the people. Some will be earnest dictatorships promoting fascism or socialism or authoritarianism or totalitarianism as a panacea, but in reality making a desert and calling it peace.
The time is just a few years past the opening of the 21st Century, so I really don't imagine I have to remind you that the last century saw the massacre by governments of some 175 million of their own citizens. The litany is familiar, but lest we ever forget: the 20th Century opened with the Turkish government exterminating about 2 million Armenians; carried on with numerous massacres of kulaks, peasants, doctors, and others in the Soviet Union, including the extermination of seven million in the Ukraine by forced starvation while wheat was being exported for hard currency and the deaths of some thirty million under Stalin's rule; proceeded with various exterminations in Central and South America of mestizos, natives, and political dissidents, totalling about half a million; reached a pinnacle of horror in the death camps of Nazi occupied Europe which claimed the lives of at least six million Jews, seven million Slavs and Poles, and about a million others; came to its mid-point with massacres of about 80 million Chinese under Mao's rule; included another 1.5 million massacred by Pol Pot's regime for crimes such as being intellectual or wearing glasses; various clan and ethnic "cleansings" in Somalia, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia, and Rwanda, and included numerous pogroms against religious or political dissidents living in one country or another by various militant religious or political fundamentalist groups. The smallest of these massacres of civilians by their own government may have been the Branch Davidian massacre at Mount Carmel, but is certainly no less memorable than the others.
Nor was the 20th Century short on wars. Deaths in the military during combat operations were easily in excess of 75 million. All told, at least a quarter of a billion people were killed by governmental actions.
So, when I write that I believe you should govern yourself, I do so out of a desire to have this century be better. I would like to see more people give up the fantasy that the government is going to help them be more free, be more prosperous, or be more happy. I have seen no evidence that externally imposed government can provide any of those things. Rather, I have seen one type of government after another prove that it is false, that it means to enslave, that it taxes and regulates prosperity away and brings poverty to nearly everyone, happiness only to those who briefly ride the tiger and imagine themselves in control.
You have the knowledge and the power to govern yourself. You can restrain yourself from injuring others. You can also restrain yourself to leave others free to pursue their own ideas of industry and activity.
How do I know it? I know that a very tiny minority, by some estimates less than 1.5% of the population, are criminally psychotic. Such people do not restrain themselves, do injure others, and are a threat. Yet, they represent a very narrow minority, a tiny number of people. So, it is nonsense to suppose that we must oppress the vast majority with all sorts of laws, regulations, and obligations in order to guard ourselves from these few who engage in violent crimes. And it has been, since ancient times, necessary to ask, "Who shall guard us from the guards themselves?" Yes, say it with me in Latin, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?"
We have been down this road before and we know exactly where it leads. Give up a little freedom to gain safety and your freedom is soon eroded into nothing. The imagined security proves to be fleeting. And, as Benjamin Franklin noted, those who do make this trade don't deserve either freedom or security. Studies by economists tell us that the fascists couldn't even get the trains to run on time. And, really, when you think about it, who wants a timely train schedule when they keep sending boxcars of people to death camps?
I believe that you are capable of governing yourself. But, what I believe about the matter isn't essential. It is vital that you believe yourself capable of self-government. Otherwise, you are very likely going to have someone else govern you. Possibly, you may choose to be governed by someone with good ethics. You may "choose this day who ye will serve" and choose wisely.
Self-government is probably not for everyone. Self-restraint is not easy or trivial. Some people won't have freedom. It does no good to beg them. You can lead a man to freedom, but you can't make him think.
You cannot free everyone else. You cannot make me free. In my case, you don't need to, because I've freed myself. Nor can I make you free. If you want to be free, you must free yourself. You must untie the ropes that bind you, break asunder the chains of debt, resolve to be your own ruler, if you mean to be free. I think you should do these things, but I cannot do them for you. I can only advise you that you have within you the same capacity for self-rule as anyone else.
And, as I've said in these pages before, why not? You should take the equal station among the powers of the Earth to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle you. You have the same birthright as the Queen of England, the same essential nature as the Prince of Monaco, the same character and fortitude and excellence as the President of the United States, if not rather a lot more of all these things. So why should you be servile? Remain a peon? Be enslaved by taxes, by debts, by wage servitude, by rules and regulations to which you never consented, by legislators who won't abide by the constitution they have sworn to uphold?
There is a better way. Convince yourself of your own sovereignty. Restrain yourself not to injure others or attempt to regulate their conduct of their lives. Now live like you mean it. Be a power unto yourself, a force for good, and a sovereign individual.
You'll be glad you do.
Free Market Money
"That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Josephus B. Stuart, 1817
Gold Mining
In our report of 30 August 2004 we indicated our enthusiasm for Freegold Ventures. You can find it on Yahoo as FGOVF.OB: chart summary. The stock is down from two weeks ago to C$0.25 or about US$0.19 (on different exchanges). We still think it is a good value, and their press releases are certainly reassuring in this regard.
The stock appears to be range bound since late April 2004, with lows not below US$0.19 and highs not in excess of US$0.28. Of course, technical analysis is fairly limited in many situations, and the stock could certainly break down from its current position below its trading range. However, we think it is likely to rebound, again, as it has done three times in the last five months. Of course, there is a good correlation between the prices of commodities such as gold and platinum and this stock's price. Look for it to break out to the upside along with these commodity prices in the Fall.
Speaking of which, we are expecting gold to close above $480 by year's end. Why? Several factors. Foremost, the fundamentals are very strong. The supply trap is firmly in place.
Er, what's a supply trap? During the period from early 1996 until early 2004, the price of gold stayed below $420 per ounce. Other commodity prices were similarly depressed in a secular, structural, long-term bear market. The roaring bull of the 1970s produced very high prices in commodities from 1973 to 1980. Very high prices generate interest in new exploration, new production, and new technologies, so supplies increase; very high prices generate interest in recycling, curtailed demand, and new technologies, so demand decreases. The price elasticity of supply and the price elasticity of demand in most markets follow a classic pattern. So, we expect low prices to have the opposite effects.
With low prices for a period of many years, demand increases readily with little price resistance. As the underlying demand increases with a long-term low price, the supply trap is built. With prices persistently below a benchmark, the incentive to explore is gone. The incentive to increase production is gone. The incentive to save money by closing older mines and slow the development of new mines is clear - why produce when prices are low? Destiny works to complete this pattern with lag times.
It takes several years from discovering a new mineral deposit to bringing production to the market, thereby affecting the price. That's true whether we speak of oil or gold or platinum. From the discovery of a new deposit to bullion on the market may take three to five years without paperwork delays. With the excessive bureaucratization of industrial activities, paperwork delays may add two or more years to this range, depending on how desperate for new industry the country in which the discovery happens to be. So, countries like the United States may oppose any mining in certain restricted areas, until suitable graft and corruption takes control. In countries like South Africa, mining may be acceptable, but organizing the right mix of "black empowerment" subcontractors may add to the burden of time. Even re-opening an existing mine may take 18 months or longer, and also has paperwork implications. Red tape is everywhere.
These difficulties are the supply trap. Until prices were above $300 per ounce for several months, exploration was very scarce. Why invest in exploring for a resource that is very inexpensive, knowing that the pay back is going to take years or decades at current prices? So, very little exploration was done until late 2002 when it was clear that prices would remain above $300/oz. Existing discoveries were not aggressively developed. Why aggressively develop a new deposit when the price is depressed?
Of course, those days are now over. The price of gold has formed a very broad "cup" formation. Jim Sinclair discusses this cup and its subsequent handle in his excellent JSMineset.com, which was free to subscribe to last time we looked. James Turk discusses this cup formation not only as it appears in US dollars, but as it has appeared in other currencies from the Swiss franc to the Japanese yen, on the pages of his Founder's Commentary at GoldMoney.com. Presumably his subscription Freemarket Gold & Money report also discusses the development of this cup and handle formation.
As Mr. Sinclair points out, the handle may continue for several more days or weeks or even months, but this type of formation is "completed" when "price action needs to break out above the handle on higher than normal volume."
There's no way to establish the size of the resulting bull market, except that it will be large. Mr. Turk has discussed a flagpole and pennant formation, running from the mid-1970s to 1980 to form the flagpole, and running out to about 2000 to form the pennant. When the price breaks out to the upside, as it clearly has done, such a formation may signal a new price equal to the height of the flagpole plus the length of the pennant, which, given the very different units of measure in the two axes is difficult to ponder. Mr. Sinclair writes, "the following bull price experience usually moves multiples of the size of the cup with handle itself."
The result will be prices not just higher but dramatically higher. A price in excess of $500/oz by year's end is reasonable. A price in excess of $1000/oz within the next six months is possible. The price could break out even more strongly in the next few years, as the supply trap springs shut. Prices as high as $7000 or $10000 per ounce are conceivable, and if the US Treasury reserves of gold are really as stated, the dollar could revert to the value of this gold divided into the amount of currency in circulation (also a doubtful, government-provided number), which would be around $33,000 per ounce.
Of course, the October surprise is coming, as it does every four years during the general election process. Look for that surprise to put the price of gold out of its handle formation and up toward the stratosphere. Whether that surprise is another major terrorist attack on the United States, possibly even including a nuclear attack, or whether it is some atrocity that results from the increasing police state apparatus, there will be a pre-election event.
We also know that significant market manipulation of the price of gold by official sector sales has preceded this new bull market. The details of this market manipulation are perhaps best summarized in the recently published report by Sprott Asset Management found here.
Making direct price history analogies is difficult, and there is no way of knowing exactly what will happen. But, the last major price manipulation was the London gold pool fiasco of the late 1960s. For several years, the market price of gold began to exceed the official redemption value of $35 per ounce. This situation became exacerbated as the American policies of war in Southeast Asia, "Great Society" social welfare programs, and a very prominent space program began to exceed even the rosiest expectations for near term economic growth and tax revenues. Very large deficits were obviously in the future, and the temptation to monetize the debt would be overwhelming. So, the dollar was not as clever an investment as redeeming dollars for gold, as was then possible.
The target price was to keep gold under $35 on the open market. To some extent, this purpose was served by fulfilling the demand for redemption very promptly. Americans were forbidden by presidential decree from owning gold from 1933 to 1976, so their participation in this opportunity had to be orchestrated by first transferring their dollars to an overseas business associate. As part of the Bretton Woods accord of 1944, about thirty world currencies were directly redeemable for dollars by the central banks of their respective countries, and dollars were redeemable for gold. European central banks were holding dollars as reserves, but began to draw down their dollar reserves and replace them with gold reserves.
France was one of the first to proceed in this direction, having a long history of dedication to gold motivated, no doubt, by both the John Law fiat money fiasco of the late 17th and early 18th Century and the assignat/mandat fiat money fiasco of the 1792 to 1797 period (detailed in Andrew Dickson White's excellent booklet Fiat Money Inflation in France available from LaissezFaireBooks.com and other booksellers.
The upshot of the London gold pool was that buyers on the London market were persistently faced with official sector sales. The USA military began to airlift gold from Fort Knox to the weighing floor of Rothschilds in London, the official scale of the London bullion marketing association. At one point, so much gold was loaded on this weighing floor that the system broke and the floor crashed through to the basement. London's gold market was closed for two weeks, during which time the Swiss set up a very active and engaging market.
The price could not be contained at $35, nor at $38, nor at $40 per ounce. Ultimately, in August of 1971, President Nixon "closed the gold window" and refused further redemptions. The Bretton Woods accord was finished.
Of greater interest to our story, the price of gold began to ascend. By early 1980, the price reached $850 per ounce on the London exchange, and by some accounts an intra-day high in New York of $895. In other words, the price swelled from a manipulation target of $35/oz to somewhat more than 24 times that price.
Fast forward to 2002. The value of the dollar has declined by about 90%. While official inflation estimates, such as the consumer price index, don't agree with this figure, the recent history of the manipulation of the consumer price index and other government-issued statistics to paint a rosier picture is now widely accepted. An anecdote should serve to remind some of our readers of prices from that bygone day.
In September 1970, a brand new 1971 model Lincoln Crowne Victoria LTD sedan cost about $2800. The same car happened to be available in September 2000. In its heavily discounted version, largely barren of extra luxury options, the 2001 model Lincoln Crowne Victoria LTD cost $28,000. With various option packages, several thousand more. When I heard of this matter, I checked the Ford Lincoln Mercury web sites and found the 2000 price. Then I went to the library and found newspaper ads from September 1970 to confirm the earlier price.
It is simply staggering What Government Has Done to Our Money. But, you should be able to surmise where this one is going.
Let's say the manipulators' target for 1996 to 2002 was $250. They came pretty close at one point to a $254/oz price. We lack any easy reference point, like the gold redemption offer available to overseas holders of USA dollars in 1970. So, the $250 mark is simply a guess, based on the official sector gold sales that have been identified subsequent to the 1999 Washington Agreement. It is also the low end of the credible range. Exploration was for all intents and purposes demolished by a price below $300 per ounce.
So, a conservative estimate for the purpose of this comparison is $250/oz as the desired target of the price manipulators. And the price 24 times as high? Is $6000/oz.
And if that price is the low end, where is the high? If we take $895/35 rather than $850/35 we get 25.57x rather than 24.13x. If we suppose a price manipulators' target of $300/ounce, we get a price of $7671/oz; a price target of $350 yields a very high end estimate of over $8900/oz.
Another factor in this consideration is the Dow:Au ratio. During the 20th Century, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached approximately 1:1 with the price per ounce of gold a total of five times. We believe this ratio may represent a sort of re-set value from which secular bear markets in commodities begin and secular bull markets in stocks begin. The last time this ratio stood at approximately 1:1 was in January 1980 at the peak of the gold price.
Assuming that this re-set value will be reached, what do we find? We find that prices in stocks are still very high compared to traditional price to earnings ratios. Even very broad market averages stand well above 25 price/earnings, whereas the long-term statistical norm is 10, and the post-WW2 norm is not more than 15. (The concept behind a price to earnings ratio of 10 or 15 is that earnings of a stable company can be expected to continue for a decade or more into the future, so that the price should exceed current earnings by some net present value calculation based on anticipated future earnings.) Trends have a way of reverting to norm, and generally spend time well below the normal value. Several analysts have suggested over recent years that a further 40% decline in stock values would be required to bring broad market averages like the S&P 500 back in line with price to earnings ratios of about 15.
We agree, and would expect sharp declines in stocks. The Dow stood at 7800 in early 2003, which was a good indication that there are several levels of price below the current level which can be reached. Which means that a price of 6000 to 8900 on the Dow is not unrealistic. This second approach confirms the general range of possible gold prices. Whether these price levels would be reached in the next five years is anyone's guess. They represent a very high caliber inflation that may have other fundamental effects; a widespread flight from the dollar might result in capital controls, a world currency attempt by the globalists, or hyperinflationary catastrophe on a scale to make Weimar Germany of 1923 look like a minor auction spectacle.
Free Market Money
This week we'd like to highlight a free market money merchant, AllMart.ws. AllMart is a conceptual extension of our old friend JP May's company, Bananagold.com. Rather than being a proxy for Amazon.com, which was the Bananagold model, AllMart is a proxy for everything. If there is a web site anywhere in the world selling something, and you'd like to pay with gold, AllMart.ws may be the place to go. This sort of proxy service enhances your ability to function without a bank account. Given the extent to which your privacy is invaded by your bankers on the pretext of nationalist security, you should limit your involvement with banks whenever possible. Space Frontier "In my considered opinion, the profit to be made by permanent settlement in space is nothing less than the survival of industrial civilization, and therefore the survival of nearly the entire human race, along with such amenities as peace, freedom, enough to eat, and the chance to reach a high age in good health."
This week, we profile Bigelow Aerospace. Next week, we take on the elusive and sometimes exciting world of Russian space companies.
Bigelow Aerospace is yet another illustration of the key fact that rich guys love space. (Paul Allen and SpaceShip One, Dennis Tito and the Soyuz to the internationalist socialist space station, are but a pair of other examples.) Budget Suites of America owner Robert Bigelow made a fortune providing fully furnished suites for business travelers. Bigelow Aerospace is his bid to build the world's first commercial space station.
Company facilities are spread out over 50 acres in north Las Vegas, certainly a great place for hoteliers and those with an interest in trade and commerce. Work is underway to build partial scale and full scale inflatable modules. These would serve a range of users from manufacturing companies seeking to do research and development on orbit to schools to hotels in space.
The R&D angle isn't a bad choice. Space manufacturing research has been active since at least the Apollo-Soyuz test project of 1975. There are numerous applications of micro-gravity to research of thin films, micro-crystalline growth, exotic metals, and other materials. Wake shield experiments in the late 1990s by the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center of the University of Houston were of modest success, and further research seems likely.
Naturally, all these possibilities hinge on access to orbit. Bigelow Aerospace seems to be committed to SpaceX and their Falcon V rocket, which are detailed below.
Launch Technology "Happiness is the Earth in your rearview mirror."
SpaceX is a development stage company
which is developing its Falcon family of launch vehicles. The company was organized in 2002 and operates from Southern California.
The Falcon I, to be flown Fall 2004 for a USA Defense Department communications satellite, is a light payload launch vehicle. It is priced at $5.9 million per flight. Its payload capability to a 200 kilometer, 28 degree inclination (Cape Canaveral) orbit is 670 kilograms. The first flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base should see the rocket on the pad in September.
The Falcon V is a medium lift launch vehicle priced at $12 million per flight. It provides 4,200 kilograms to the same 200 km, 28 degree orbit, or 1,250 kilos to geosynchronous transfer orbit. It may become the lowest cost per kilogram to orbit production launch vehicle available. These vehicles may be launched from sites at Cape Canaveral, Florida; Vandenberg, California; Kodiak, Alaska; Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia; and the Marshall Islands, providing a variety of launch inclinations.
SpaceX are developing these vehicles from the ground up, including main and upper stage engines, turbo-pumps, cryogenic tank structures, and guidance systems.
Hey, rich guys love space. Elon Musk is the CEO and Chief Technology Officer for SpaceX. Previously he founded PayPal, which has become a leading electronic payment system claiming twenty million customers in 38 customers. See finance.yahoo.com for PYPL. A previous venture, Zip2 Corporation was sold by Mr. Musk in 1999 for $307 million in an all cash deal with Compaq. To his credit, he's assembled a quality team of managers from the aerospace industry and the region.
The first flight for Bigelow Aerospace is also the first flight of the Falcon V and is scheduled for Fall 2005. Apparently "money has changed hands" according to a Space.com article by Leonard David featured on the Bigelow home page, so there is a definite launch contract.
New Country Developments "Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."
This week, we'd like to highlight Hutt River Province. It is one of the rare exceptions to the Endersby tradition.
As you know, Australia is both a country and a continent. Therefore it is silly to suppose that any of Australia's imports would come over land.
However, that tradition ended on 21 April 1970 when formal notice of secession was served on Premier David Brand and others establishing Hutt River Province. The basic grievance was that the wheat quota for a group of five family farms in Western Australia was economic tyranny of a staggering order. Balking at their own bankruptcy, the families banded together to first oppose the wheat quota through government channels (in 1969) and were horrified when the government asserted it would "resume" any rural lands, presumably stealing them from their owners in the name of eminent domain, perhaps without compensation.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was originally offered sovereignty of the new country, but did not accept this prerogative. The sovereign of Hutt River Province is Prince Leonard.
Various documents on the HuttRiver.net web site suggest that
the government of Western Australia and of Australia generally waived relevant constitutional authority and essentially abdicated sovereignty over the territory of the Hutt River Province. Subsequently, the population of the new country elected a board of administration and Leonard Casley as Administrator. In following the rules of British diplomacy, recognition was sought and, on a second exchange of letters, Mr. Casley was cordially address as the Administrator of Hutt River Province by the Governor General's Department, effective recognition it would seem. A subsequent election brought in a new Australian Prime Minister whose government sought to deny the secession and, presumably, intended to seize the territory.
The Hutt River Province folks found a law that states that anyone assisting a de facto Prince to attain his office cannot be charged with treason, and that anyone hindering a de facto prince from discharging his princely duties may be charged with treason. Accordingly, the people of Hutt River Province adopted the status of principality and bestowed the title of prince upon the administrator, thus creating Prince Leonard George Casley of Hutt River Province.
Media interest worldwide spurred considerable tourism in the early 1970s. In turn, this development led to the issue of low denomination bank notes in 1974 followed by a series of six coins in 1976. The 1976 series includes both proof and uncirculated coins of aluminium, copper, brass, and cupro-nickel as well as a silver coin of one ounce, .999 pure, and a gold coin of 24 carats. These coins were minted by the Lombardo Mint and are now collectors items. The 1977 issue was similar, but the gold coin was reduced to 22 carats. Other coins have followed, and these are discussed thoroughly on the imperial-collection.net web site.
The 2000 commemorative of the Hutt River Province's 30th anniversary was a gold coin of 24 carats, minted by the Wyndham Mint. It has a weight of 8 grams, which is presumably the same as the fine weight since it is 24 carats. The $100 face value of this coin is quite close to a subsequent gold gram price of $12.50/gram. Weights on early precious metal coins were not available when we went to press.
Like other small and micro nations, Hutt River Province Principality issues stamps, coins, paper money, and license plates as collectibles. The principality recognizes dual citizenship and today well over 16,000 citizens in 73 countries have become overseas citizens. The principality also has a Royal College of Heraldry which offers official registration of individual or institutional arms and the design and rendering of arms for qualified individuals or institutions. Of course, there are fees for these services.
What began as a protest over economic tyranny became secession and has continued as a determined sovereignty in the face of official challenges and oppression.
Longevity "The FDA's history is one of incompetence, fraud, deceit, and the continuous striving for more power. Over the past 25 years, the Food and Drug Administration has sought to gain authoritarian control that Congress never intended it to have. In every attempt to seize this kind of power, the FDA has been beaten back by a swell of public protest." The FDA was established by President Theodore Roosevelt and an act of Congress. The notion that food and drugs were too dangerous in the hands of ordinary Americans remains too ludicrous to believe.
Of course, the Progressive movement was a sort of socialism set in shades tolerable to Americans who were, at the time, very suspicious of "bolshevism" and other anti-property schemes. One may identify the Granger movement and the Populist movement with similar themes, though these were never as advanced in the socialist dimension as the Progressives. In addition to agencies for the regulation of business, our friends the Progressives were for a graduated income tax to soak the rich, wage and price controls, and the Federal Reserve act. These attacks on private property were artfully disguised as attempts to bring "free market principles" to industries that were controlled by a small number of major players, such as banking, pharmaceuticals, and railroads.
Of course, in the event, the historic truth of all such regulatory agencies is that they are rapidly co-opted by the major players in their respective industries, become rubber stamps for the approval of mergers by the major players, shills for the consolidation of their industries, and ultimately brute force for the enforcement of the preferences of the vested interests. If the public is left feeling cheated, it is not much more than they deserve for first agreeing to the disgusting notion of majority control of private property.
So, what has the FDA to do with longevity? Quite simply, it is a threat. The pharmaceutical companies do not want you to be healthy, they want you to consume more drugs. The major food producers don't want you to be a healthy weight, they want you to consume more food. Evidence suggests a very broad pattern of corruption and deceit.
Some food additives that were allegedly promoted for diet foods appear to increase appetite rather than suppress it. Some medicines for certain well-known conditions seem to exacerbate the conditions, notably acid reflux "disease" which used to be known as heartburn.
Doctors, meanwhile, formed their own cartel through the development of the American Medical Association and medical licensing in the several states. Medical doctors are no longer the targets for advertising by pharmaceutical companies, but are more purveyors of samples to consumers who are inundated with ads for anti-depressants on situation comedy shows.
The American Medical Association was successfully sued by the chiropractors who proved that it was operating in restraint of trade. The chiropractors are only somewhat better, in that they have concern for the frame, diet, and exercise, but have their own licensing authorities which seek to raise barriers to entry for new doctors or limit the transfer of licensed chiropractors from states where they are plentiful to states where they are scarce.
In a truly free society, there would be no limits placed on what vitamin supplement manufacturers could state on their product labels, provided that the statements were not fraudulent in intent. There would be no limits on who could become a doctor, nor on whether medicines could be suggested by pharmacists and chiropractors as well as homeopathic medicine specialists or nutritionists. There would be no limits other than the free market on whether those promoting fraudulent "cures" would stay in business. Fraud itself would be handled in private sector courts adjudicating various types of contracts.
No doubt, we do not live in a free society. Creating a culture of freedom is hard work. It takes dedication. It faces constant opposition by those who seek to control.
Copyright © 2004 Jim Davidson, All Rights Reserved.
- Poul Anderson, Galileo, 1979
- Dale Amon, IslandOne.org
- Keppel Endersby, former Australian cabinet minister
- Bill Faloon, Life Extension Magazine March 2000
Publication note: Assuming the author remains free, the publication schedule should begin to merge with a standard week. This week's edition is again slightly delayed. If it should prove unworkable to maintain a 50 issue per year schedule, the subscribers to our five week trial will be provided with five issues; the subscribers to our annual rate will be provided with 50 issues, on whatever schedule these become available. We apologize for the variance from our offer.
