Year: 2012

Forgive me for Disengaging

rafifarber Israeli Politics, Likud, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

I have a confession to make. I supported the Disengagement. Not only did I support it, I supported it fully. I even called those advocating refusal of orders dangerous traitors, Zecharyah ben Avkilas types who would send away Emperor Nero’s sacrifice because of a flaw rather than sacrifice it and save Jerusalem.

It is critical that you understand exactly why I felt this way.

There are two distinct goals for the Jewish People at this point in history. One goal is to build a giant defensive wall and use it to protect the Jewish People as much as possible against the next wave of destruction, and in the meantime just wait for the Jewish People to be redeemed somehow. This is a negative goal, and as such, essentially has no direction. It’s just a beautifully paved road to nowhere. The other goal, which is mutually exclusive, is to actually redeem the Jewish People. This is the only possible positive goal, the only one that leads somewhere real.

The theory of Disengagement is that you hunker down, gather the Jews, make sure they’re all on our side of the fence, build a giant fortress wall, and hide behind it for as long as possible. This is the quintessential defensive tactic that looks appealing to those who have no positive goals other than defending the Jewish People.

This is why I supported the disengagement. Because in an environment where there simply was no leader who had any positive goals, it seemed like the best option for defense. I didn’t see any leader who was even trying to move along the process of redemption. So I wanted to separate populations, Jews and Arabs, put them on one side, put us on the other, build a giant wall – literally – and wait behind it for Moshiach. The Disengagement was one step towards that for me.

Oh how I cried when I realized what I had done. I cried not when the Disengagement happened. That was very painful – I remember watching it as it happened, but the tears of the people being torn from their homes could not inspire my own to flow. I cried, rather, when I saw that I had completely missed something essential. One night in late 2008 I read an article in the Jerusalem Post that some guy named Feiglin may get a Knesset seat on the Likud list and that Netanyahu was actually scared of this. I wondered what he could actually be scared of.

I got curious, and I went to Feiglin’s website. He had joined Likud because he actually wanted to lead the entire nation and declare victory on top of the Temple Mount. When I heard that, my soul, hardened by years of building defensive walls and buying time, began to melt. Feiglin wasn’t speaking to any Jewish sector at all, but to the entire Jewish nation. Something inside me cracked and I shed a tear. I understood. He wants to finish the process of Geulah. He has an actual positive goal.

Then the tears really came. I realized that what led me to support the bitter evil of the Disengagement was simply my desire to go on defense and just wait it out instead of move it forward. I cried because I understood I didn’t have to think that way anymore, ever again. I could move forward. That’s the Jewish concept of avoiding from evil and doing good. In order to avoid evil, you must do good, otherwise you get caught up in evil unwittingly, like I did. And those getting caught in the evil right now are all those stuck in the sectoral mentality.

Trying to unite the Religious Zionists is nothing but an insidious form of Disengagement. Less brutal, for sure, but insidious and wrong. Instead of disengaging from LAND and separating ARABS and Jews, those who even RECOGNIZE sectors are disengaging from the Jewish PEOPLE and separating JEWS and Jews.

You want to know why Religious Zionist parties keep shrinking? Because they’re boring. Because they lack any sort of positive goal. Because voters are tired of playing defense.

This is NOT a question of how we unite the Religious Zionists to build the next wall of defense. This is a question of what you think God really wants from the Jewish people. Does God want sector A to outvote sector B and then Moshiach comes? God wants us to simply buy enough time until His Divine egg timer goes off in the sky and it’s time for Moshiach to just show up by default? Is this just a silly game of chicken? Or does God want the Jews, all of us, to realize, together, as a nation, what the heck we’re doing here in Israel and why?

I believe God wants the second option. In order for us to realize what we’re doing here, we need a leader who speaks to every single Jew. If you’re in a sector, then talk and talk as much as you want about Jewish identity and any Jew out of your sector will simply ignore you, because you’ve disengaged yourself from them.

Manhigut Yehudit is not about defense, and it is not even about saving the settlements. Every Likud primary is about speaking to this stiff-necked people of ours, the Jewish People, who are confused and directionless, and telling them that we need to finish the process of Redemption and lead this world. No matter what the results are; whether Moshe Feiglin wins a victory or comes close or loses, one thing is absolutely certain. Every time he runs, Feiglin speaks, and Am Yisrael listens. Left and right, Dati Hiloni Haredi. EVERYONE hears him.

Would anyone care if Naftali Bennett came out supporting medical marijuana? No, because Bennett is disengaged from Am Yisrael. Nobody cares what he says. Just a fact. But when Moshe Feiglin supports medical marijuana, all of a sudden every station has to interview him immediately. That’s the nation listening.

Those in the “Jewish Home” – for the love of God, and I don’t use that phrase lightly, stop your disengagement from the Jewish People. Talk to them. All of them. You can help us talk to them. Join Likud and TALK to them. You may not win a seat, but for God’s sake they’ll hear you.

Moshe Feiglin will win because he’s the only one with a goal. Everything else is meaningless chatter about how best to do nothing. The path is not glorious. It is not easy. It is full of ridicule and naysayers. It is full of dirty political tricks that will drive you mad. But if you want to bring Jewish history to its climax, we need everyone in on it. You can all help.

Moshe Feiglin will keep speaking. You can either make his voice that much louder and be a part of Jewish history, or you can, yet again, go in Galut defensive mode, disengage from the rest of the Jews, and fight the next prime minister from your defensive wall of Knesset seats. And then watch it be torn down to dust.

The Fed OD’s on QE3 and bonds go down, the real crash is beginning

rafifarber Economics, Gold and Silver, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

The Fed today announced it would print money until the economy recovers. Ergo, it will print money forever, because printing money prevents economic recovery.

Gold and silver went berzerk today. But bonds did not. They went down. You’d expect, after an announcement that the guys who print money are going to be buying bonds with it, that the value of bonds would go up. If a company is bought out by a bigger company, then the stock goes up, because said bigger company is buying a bunch of stock of the smaller company being bought out. This is what happens in normal markets.

Unless…unless nobody wants any of the shares of the smaller company to begin with and they all think the big company is insane to buy up the smaller company because all they sell is solar powered flashlights, so everyone sells all their shares to the bigger company and the stock actually goes down even though the big company is buying it up because EVERYONE ELSE is selling their shares to the bigger company too.

This is what happened today. The government is selling pieces of paper that promise to pay you dollars in the future. They are selling “stock” in dollars. But dollars in the future are worth a lot less than dollars in the present. Nobody wants dollars in the future. They’re like solar powered flashlights. So they’re all selling them to the fed. And bonds went down, even though the biggest buyer just stepped in and said we will buy bonds forever.

This is it folks. The real crash is starting right now. If bonds are going down today of all days, interest rates are on their way up That means the interest on the national debt is about to go through the roof. Every bailed out bank is going to fail. Again. And this time there won’t be any more bailouts.

Does public “investment” crowd out the private sector? OF COURSE IT DOES!

rafifarber Economics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

There is one rule of thumb I always use in trying to tell the difference between an econometrician and an economist. Or, in other words, a Keynesian versus an Austrian economist. That is, Keynesian arguments are generally devoid of any soul or feeling, and treat economics like a laboratory science where if you mix the right chemicals in the right proportions, you’ll have the desired effect. Often their arguments deny the most basic common sense principles using fancy econometric language and quite frankly make me feel like an idiot for even having to defend absolutely fundamental economic realities that even 5 year old children can grasp with ease.

It’s even worse than that actually. It pains me, a punk kid with no degree, to go up against a published PhD and claim that what he’s saying is below the level of a 5 year old with basic common sense, but say it I must, because it’s the truth. It scares me to no end, really, that when the SHTF, people will turn to these authoritarians for answers that will enslave us all.

In my very first economics class when I was a pisher little high school senior, my teacher Mrs. Holcman taught us that economics is, by definition, the study of “scarcity and choice”. Meaning, there is a limited amount of resources on the planet, and economics is the study of choosing between those scarce resources. Presumably, consumers should choose between them in the most efficient and productive way so as to produce the most possible wealth from those resources and raise the standard of living of the human race. What I’m saying here is not rocket science. If a five year old has one dollar and in front of him are a chocolate bar and a toy, and he can only choose one, he understands the reality of scarcity and choice.

Then came the Keynesians and claimed, first, that while economics is about scarcity and choice, it is not the goal of economics to figure out how to best use scarce resources. It doesn’t matter how efficiently they are used at all. They can simply be wasted and aggregate demand for them being equal, everything should turn out the same.

But they claim something even worse than that. They claim that, essentially, there is really no such thing as scarcity at all. The world is an endless pit of resources and we do not even have to choose.

See this article by Yanis Varoufakis. I’ve mentioned him before as a slippery Keynesian who is at first not recognizable as such, and today I’ve figured out why. It’s because he writes with such soul. He has real emotional conviction, and this does not fit into my rule of thumb in searching for a lack of soul to spot Keynesian reasoning. So I was fooled for a while.

The Keynesian Orwellian phraseology for “there is no such thing as scarcity” is “public investment does not crowd out private investment”. He calls the belief that public investment crowds out private investment childish. This is mindboggling and scary.

We are to believe that simply because money put somewhere is put there by government instead of a private person, that simply because the label of the money is different, it is therefore infinite? If public money does not crowd out the private sector, then an infinite amount of public money can be spent without any effect. Essentially, money does grows on trees, as long as it’s the government spending it instead of a private person.

It doesn’t matter what money is labeled and who spends it. If you spend it on one thing, you cannot spend it on the other. It doesn’t matter what sector you are in. Everything crowds out everything, because there is only a finite amount of money and wealth on this planet.

Economics is the study of SCARCITY and CHOICE. That means by definition that if you choose one resource, you cannot choose the other. Government is not a god that can override this human limitation. Varoufakis and other Keynesians want us to believe that government is a god that can provide manna from heaven.

The question is, do you want government choosing where to put resources, or do you want private people choosing where to put resources?

Responding to Likud Anglos’ Daniel Tauber’s “Freedom Agenda”

rafifarber Foreign Policy, Likud, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

I know and respect Daniel Tauber, head of Likud Anglos, despite my tone in this rebuttal. He has gotten farther than I have in politics, though I suspect that’s because I hate politics. We agree on many things, but foreign policy is definitely not one of them. This is my response to his Jerusalem Post article that can be seen here. My responses to each paragraph are in bold.

Not long after September 11, US president George W. Bush declared “a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.” No longer would the US support dictators, but would actively push Arab states to become democratic.

So since 9/11, the US has not supported any dictators, but has instead actively pushed Arab states to become democratic? There are two problems with that statement, both of which have to do with reality. First, since 9/11, the US has supported almost every Mideast dictator with US taxpayer money. Both King Abdullahs (Saudi Arabia and Jordan) Qaddafi (when he did stuff Bush liked), Mubarak, Karzai in Afghanistan, who America basically installed by force of big bombs on airplanes (“democratically” I suppose), the guy in Qatar (a dictator who Bush really liked because they let him put bombs in their country to promote freedom in the Middle East), Bahrain, Kuwait, but I’m sure all this dictator support was in order to promote democracy and a free middle east.

If by “actively push Arab states to become democratic” Tauber means “actively push Arab states by force to do whatever America wants them to do” then he’s right.

The policy was based on two primary conclusions: first, that under authoritarian regimes, the Middle East “will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export”; second, the tenets of liberalism were universal and the “peoples of the Middle East” are not “somehow beyond the reach of liberty.”

The Middle East IS a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export precisely BECAUSE America cannot resist collecting oil fiefdoms and annoying Arabs with military bases on their land that they use to manage their ludicrous empire.

Inspiring words, but elections in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority (which Bush brought about) led to victories for Hezbollah and Hamas. While some advocates of the “freedom agenda” have hailed the Arab Spring as confirming Bush’s vision, in Egypt, Islamist parties won the parliament and presidency. But that doesn’t mean president Bush was wrong in principle.

Bush wasn’t WRONG in principle. Bush didn’t HAVE a principle. He was simply LYING. He didn’t care about liberty. He was just using the word “liberty” because he wanted to have Saddam Hussein’s handgun framed in the Oval Office as a war prize to show to his daddy so he’d be proud of him for finishing the job. It would have been cheaper to send him to a good shrink so he’d find his father’s approval in a way that wouldn’t cost $1 trillion and thousands of American lives for NO reason.

His argument was essentially a reformulation of the self-evident truth that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” The “freedom agenda” merely applied US support for democracy abroad to the Middle East, where a pro-stability philosophy governed its foreign policy.

This one’s a real kicker. Yes, all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Like the right not to be bombed by foreign countries one did not provoke in any way. What the heck did Saddam Hussein ever do to the United States except unsuccessfully try to defend himself against them in 1991 and 2003? Sure he was a schmuck, but I can’t think of a single Mideast dictator that isn’t. The US has no pro-stability philosophy. If they did they’d leave other countries alone and just trade with them. They have not a pro-liberty philosophy, but a pro-empire philosophy, and will use any excuse to expand. 9/11 was a rather good one. Instead of going after Osama bin Laden directly with a few special forces, killing the guy and calling it a day, they followed the USSR’s example and obliterated all of Afghanistan and decided to make it a US colony.

For those who were indeed inspired by the “freedom agenda,” who, as liberals and humanitarians, still desire the success of democracy in the Middle East, the question is not whether democracy was meant to come to the region. The question is how, in light of subsequent developments, the “freedom agenda” could be modified to ensure that democracy is not merely the rubber stamp on an Islamist takeover.

The scholarly tone of this paragraph really drives me up a wall. Besides democracy itself being a horrible thing (the majority can always vote to kill the minority or take all their stuff in a democracy), no one who calls himself a liberal or humanitarian votes to promote liberal and humanitarian values by slaughtering innocent Arab children. NEVER forget that over half a MILLION Iraqi kids died after the first gulf war due to sanctions against the country that prevented food and medicine from entering Iraq’s borders. In the name of democracy I guess. Madeleine Albright called this a “worthwhile sacrifice” in an interview with 60 minutes in the mid 90’s. Does Tauber believe it was worthwhile as well? I can only assume so. No wonder Bin Laden was able to gather up so much support and enthusiasm for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

First, it should be recognized, as it has been by many, that elections alone do not establish democracy.

Yes, they do, and that’s precisely why democracy is evil. Tauber is confusing democracy with liberty. The latter is the ultimate good. The former is very bad. Democracy is effectively rule by the majority, which is precisely why pushing it in a culture that does not value individual life very highly is a sincerely stupid idea. In a country like the US where liberty is culturally respected at least in theory, democracy is less dangerous, though still pretty bad.

An election can be merely the one-time tool of an anti-democratic group in seizing power. Elections can also be rigged, either by outright electoral fraud or because those in power don’t allow for real opposition. The symbolic power of an election, which Bush realized could draw people to democracy, can also be misused as a method of legitimizing authoritarian regimes.

Yes, this is all true. Which is why Tauber’s “freedom agenda” is inane.

INSTEAD OF merely calling for or endorsing elections, the focus should be on establishing a democratic political culture by offering direct assistance to democratic organizations and pressing states, including new democracies – and pressing them hard – to establish and protect those institutions such as a free media and (non- Islamist) opposition parties.

If you want to press “new democracies” hard, why don’t you go do it yourself with your own money? How do you want to “press them hard”? By bombing them some more? More sanctions that will just end up killing more children? How much is this going to cost? Has it ever succeeded in history? Where is the money going to come from? The Federal Reserve? In case you haven’t noticed, America is the most bankrupt institution in human history.

Second, the collapse of authoritarian regimes in the region tends to unleash extreme anti-Israel forces, which may have even been fostered by the former regimes. This is not just a threat to Israel. If democracy enables those forces to wreak havoc on their neighbors as well as their own citizens that democracy will be artificial and worthless.

All democracies imposed by guns and bombs on cultures that do not value liberty in principle, are ipso facto artificial and worthless. The biggest threat to Israel is actually America itself, while they are busy pissing off so many Arab countries and Israel sits there as the easier target to lash out against in response.

So as part of its push for a democratic culture, the US should make clear, to Egypt especially, that state institutions must be free of anti-Israel rhetoric, that anti-Israel terrorist groups must be eliminated, and that “reviewing” peace treaties, leaving Israeli embassies unprotected from violent mobs and arresting Jewish tourists as “spies,” are all unacceptable.

And how is the mighty United States going to enforce all this? With more bombs and sanctions that will cost the global economy, already in recession, hundreds of billions of dollars? Will taxpayers be forced to subsidize secret CIA and NSA forces in Egypt making sure no Egyptians say anything bad about Israel or they’ll be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, yet another outpost of the US Empire?

Third, the US itself must not feed the obsession over Israel with repeated attempts at reviving the peace process. This shifts regional attention away from the various states’ many internal problems. These misguided efforts also divert US attention and capital from actually promoting democracy.

Now THIS is a good paragraph. I agree with this paragraph 97.72%, given that there are 44 words in it and I only disagree with one of the words – democracy. Change it to “liberty” and I’m all with Tauber. If only he applied the same logic of America leaving Israel alone to leaving everyone alone who does not attack them, then we’d be in business. It is indeed sad that the only country Tauber wants America to stop meddling with is the very country Tauber himself actually lives in. What about everyone else? Don’t they deserve to not be meddled with as well?

The final and most important reform to the freedom agenda is shifting focus to Iran, the preeminent anti-democratic force in the region. During our conversation, Abrams said it would have been “ludicrous” to think about democracy in the Middle East with someone like Saddam Hussein “sitting in the middle of it.” It seems equally ludicrous to think about democracy in the Middle East when the mullahs are sitting on high in Iran.

Iran WAS a democracy that respected liberty before America decided to get involved in 1953 and depose their leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, due to an oil dispute with Great Britain and install the dictatorial and brutal Shah. It is ludicrous to think about democracy in the Mideast by forcing it with armies on cultures that do not value liberty.

It goes without saying that Iran must be prevented from developing nuclear weapons.

Yes, but what does this have to do with America? Has Iran ever threatened America? America has certainly threatened Iran. Iranian nukes are Israel’s problem. Israel is the one being threatened, not America. So let’s deal with it.

Whether or not Israel unilaterally strikes Iran and regardless of how much damage it does to Iran’s nuclear program, the US must ensure that sanctions are kept in place and be overtly willing to use force itself.

With WHAT money? Sanctions against innocent Iranians for WHAT? Have sanctions EVER stopped governments from doing what the US didn’t want them to do? Can he cite an example? One would be enough. Just one.

The sanctions and military, cyber, covert and other attacks will take their toll on the regime. The mullahs cannot hold out forever as their airplanes threaten to fall out of the sky for lack of replacement parts, food prices rise, their currency is devalued, they are unable to export their most lucrative commodity, and cannot insure their commercial shipping, while also silencing all opposition.

In case you haven’t noticed, food prices are rising everywhere, currencies are being devalued globally, and America doesn’t export anything except papers called “dollars” and “treasuries”. See the chart below. That’s the US trade deficit. What plugs up the hole to bring it back to zero? Paper. When everyone realizes that the paper is actually worthless because America is not good for its debts, the Empire will come crashing down and Tauber will have to follow my advice to leave everyone alone due to complete lack of any alternative.

How to shrink government in Israel step 1: Zero taxes for public employees

rafifarber Economics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

I was listening to a lecture by Murray Rothbard the other week about John Maynard Keynes the man. The lecture itself was fascinating, and revealed to me that Keynes referred to himself as an “immoralist” who lectured about the virtues of homosexuality over heterosexuality, actively preferring the former even though he was actually attracted to women. It became clear to me that this man was entirely backwards to the core, and now has the world addicted to the idea that in order to become rich, one has to go into debt.

But there was one thing that stood out that had little to do with Keynes in that lecture. That is, Murray made the offhand remark that public employees – meaning anyone receiving a government paycheck – should not pay any taxes. In fact, public employees are the ones that are living off of private sector tax money, and it makes no accounting sense to have them pay back into the very funds they are living off of.

Instead, public employee pay should simply be reduced by the percentage they would have had to pay in taxes had they been private sector workers. For example, let’s say a Knesset Member gets 20,000 shekels a month and pays 6,000 in withheld income tax, arnona, bitach leumi, and whatever else he pays. Instead, he should simply earn 14,000 shekels period.

What’s the difference? The difference is huge. The fact that public employees “pay taxes” so to speak blurs the line between private and public sectors – between who pays taxes and who consumes them. It makes people think that the tax eaters pay equally into the trough, when in fact that are simply consuming and vomiting back into it. If public employees – ALL of them – paid ZERO taxes – no bituach leumi, no income tax, no arnona (land and property taxes), nothing at all as all these taxes go to fund their salaries anyway, then it would become much clearer who is eating and who is producing. It would give Israel a much better idea of exactly how big their government is and how destructive. And people would start to wake up about what exactly they’re paying and to whom.

Special pay stubs should be made for all public employees that show ZERO withholding. These should be plastered all over the place. They would not be required to file a return at all. They would simply earn less. This means no doctor would pay any taxes, no state-employed Rabbi, no Knesset member, no government clerk, no judge, no police officer, no Shabak agent, not a single active duty soldier, the prime minister, the cabinet, their aids, no child day care employee, no school teacher, no public university professor, no histadrut labor union worker, garbage man, no public radio talk show host, no school administrator should pay a single shekel in taxes of any kind whatsoever from their tax-funded salaries.

They should not feel that they are contributing to the public tax burden, because in fact they are feeding off of it. Every penny of their salaries is tax money. They should understand that very well. And the people of Israel should understand very well just how much of their lives the state runs, how humongous their public sector is.

Only then will it start shrinking.

Is Everyone Else a Slave?

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between my life and the lives of others. Rafi talks a lot about freedom from government control, but for me it goes far beyond the government and includes many other controls in society. People don’t realize that they choose their own lives, that they have many options. It’s true that life throws us curve balls sometimes, but we are free to swing at them or not however we choose. I find that oftentimes people live their lives on autopilot and don’t make choices, but then complain about their lives. The problem is very few take responsibility for themselves. Once you do that, you’ll find yourself making better choices and feeling happier about those choices. I’ve learned that autonomy leads to happiness. I know that it works for me.

I don’t live my life according to whatever is considered “normal” and “proper” in society. If what I do happens to be that, it means that I thought it through and chose that way anyway because it fit my life best. For example, I am married and have children, which happens to be very traditional, though maybe less-so today. To me, it works. I love my husband, and I love my children and I love that we can live and grow together and are bound together. I chose this because I thought it was right for me and I value it, not because society told me so. People who choose marriage out of external pressure will probably not be happy.

Let’s begin with values that I have since that is how I make these choices. Some of my values (in no particular order) efficiency, health, environment, family. When there is something that needs to be done, I think about how to do it according to this value and other values that I have. Of course, the values I have listed are pretty broad, but I determine how I live in accordance with how I interpret these values.

How do I make choices in my life that are more efficient? Some big ones include cutting costs around things that I don’t value such as fashion, obsessive cleanliness, toys, various strollers and baby gear that aren’t essential, and other items that have little use in my life. In these areas, we stick to basics. It saves a lot of money and time. Most people have these things because other people have these things and they think that they need them as well. If people really stopped to think about what they actually need to promote their values and what is just acceptable in society, they wouldn’t buy most of the stuff they have. If someone out there has a fashion value, then they would buy stuff in that area, but I assume that most do not, for instance. This type of lifestyle makes me happy, I choose what I need and I don’t worry about all the extra stuff. When I walk in a mall, I am not tempted to buy anything unless I know that I need it. This also ties in with my environment value. Also, another value is that I never buy what I can’t afford, we even hope to amass enough capital to avoid being a slave to a mortgage and are taking measures to achieve that goal.­

Not wasting things we do need is another aspect of efficiency. I use very few disposable items. I use a menstrual cup instead of tampons and pads, my babies wear cloth diapers instead of disposables, we use bathwater and a/c water to flush the toilet (why use clean water to do that?), we rarely use disposable kitchen or dining supplies, we even re-use aluminum foil when possible. We even use the sun for cooking sometimes in our solar oven.

One of my daughter’s favorite activities is to feed the neighborhood goats our compost. This provides educational entertainment, a nice walk, and a bonding experience for us without any cost and it is also good for the environment. When we were a newly married couple before children, our dates consisted of collecting bottles and cans to return for recycling. It was like a real video game, providing us with entertainment, exercise, and even some money while helping to clean up the streets and parks. We would get around the city on our bikes to save time by not sitting in traffic, exercise instead, and get places feeling energized. Now that we don’t live in a city, my husband chooses to hitch a ride to work and run through a field the rest of the way for the same reasons. None of these are the accepted norms, but they work for us and we love what we do.

Some may call us cheap, but sometimes frugality conflicts with other values so we spend our resources on those values such as health, environment, family, and investment in the future. We invested in natural gas tank for our already small and fuel efficient car (1997 Kia Pride). This cost us a lot of money and stress but we see it as an investment since gasoline prices are on the rise and natural gas is cleaner and more abundant. Plus, a large percentage of oil is Arab-controlled.

We also invest in our health, but not like everyone else does. I don’t assume that doctors know what’s best, though I know that there are times when they are useful and necessary. We don’t buy pain-killers, antihistamines, and other drugs, many are endorsed by doctors only because they are given incentives to prescribe them or they are a quick fix. We don’t focus on trying to feel good by alleviating symptoms, we strive to actually be healthy so that we actually do feel good. This is doing research about the source of our ailments and correcting them. It also involves prevention of ailments. We invest in eating a good diet according the primal blueprint using supplements such as fish oil and a multivitamin, and eating simply. My daughters both nurse, also an efficient and natural choice, and I don’t waste resources on another species milk which seems unnecessary to me when I have the proper milk for them readily available and at no cost. This is also related to my family bonding value.

Many people have a career value and good for them, there must be people like that in the world. We don’t. Rafi works in order to support his family, no more than that. I only work when I enjoy it. Otherwise, I do my main job as a woman which is run the household and educate our children. I teach English. In a school like normal teachers? Absolutely not!!! Why not? Too stressful, impossible to teach anything, and not enough money to pry me away from my primary womanly responsibilities. “Feminists” can cringe at my decisions, but I value my role as a woman and love it! Yes, I still need time away to do other things which is why I have side jobs that I enjoy and are worth it. That’s my choice. Others should feel free to choose what makes them happy too. With all the money I save being efficient and not paying for long daycare hours, I can feel free to enjoy myself and my family and still come out in the green each month.

Rafi and I are far from perfect. We know that and don’t pretend to be. We make plenty of mistakes along the road. The difference is that when you think things through and proceed with the mistake, you are more likely to learn and grow from it instead of being trapped in it and blaming others.

Bottom line, I choose my life and I choose my attitude. I choose according to my values, and I am happy with my choices. My life is simple, meaningful, and full of freedom. I can’t complain and I don’t.  Why is this so rare?

I don’t judge others who have values that don’t match my own. I do judge others who do not have any values or who choose to ignore their values.

Here is a challenge for life:

1) Determine what you really value and what you really want from your life.

2) Forget what society does and figure out what you can do to emulate those values.

3) Make choices. Live those choices and learn from them. Don’t complain.

Israel to increase budget deficit; risk economy for buying votes

rafifarber Economics ,

Today’s Israel Hayom Newspaper: Deficit Widening goes to Government for Vote.

Netanyahu, the fiscal conservative, has decided that it’s a good idea to spend even more money that Israel doesn’t have. Why? Because people want stuff without paying for it. See this clip below from the newspaper.

This is a poll of Israeli citizens. From top to bottom:

Haviv Banai (55): I am against raising taxes. It’s best if they take more money from the tycoons so we wouldn’t have to go into debt.

Eli Lavi (58): If the State needs more money, it’s better to raise taxes rather than widen the deficit.

Doctor David Yishai (57): The economic situation is good and we can relax a bit. We need widen the deficit and not raise taxes.

Doctor Eldad Berkowitz (48): We must not under any circumstances widen the deficit. Be we must not raise taxes either on those who are buckling under the pressure.

Sarah Keidan (56): We don’t need to widen the deficit, but we can raise taxes on the rich and high income earners.

Ra’anan Kahta (33): The State needs to honor its payments and we can only do that by widening the deficit or raising taxes. The treasury will need to find creative ways of getting more money into its coffers.

What’s astounding here is that nobody suggests that perhaps the government should just spend less money. It’s an option that doesn’t even exist according to everyone polled. You either raise taxes or go into debt. If the State says it needs money, then whatever – it needs money and we cannot dispute that.

What about halving the salaries of every Knesset Member? They earn what, 44,000 a month or something? They can’t survive on 22,000? how about every government employee has to pay for his own car and gasoline, just like I do, instead of the government paying for it. How about they pay for their own flights to cockamaymee events where they blow air at people? How about we eliminate the entire Shlav Bet army program from new immigrants where we waste time doing nothing for six months at 50,000 shekels a worthless soldier?

How about limiting the number of ministers in the government? How much do they make a month for doing nothing? Nobody here thinks of these things, because they are all government slaves.

Netanyahu is doing this now because he wants the people yelling in the streets for things from the government to shut up, so instead of cutting his salary, he’s endangering everybody’s income. What happens when you go too deep into debt? Ask Greece. They seem to be doing fine.

Get rid of Stanley Fischer and end the Bank of Israel

rafifarber Economics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Economic Policy Journal led me to an article in the Times of Israel talking about how African central bankers are on their way to Israel to figure out why our economy isn’t as screwed up as everyone else’s. The answer is, we don’t borrow as much as everyone else. Instead, we just tax Israeli citizens to the point that they think something’s wrong if their mortgage payments go down for some reason.

Many of the average Israelis who I talk to from time to time when economic crisis becomes the subject line believe that we are safe because we have this genius at the helm whose name is Stanley Fisher who is all-knowing and omnipotent and can save us from any crisis. It’s human nature to attribute all the good to one tangible point that you can see. This is the essence of the emotion that leads to idolatry.

There is nothing amazing about Stanley Fisher, except for the fact that he refuses to use his power of printing money AS MUCH as other central bankers. He’s relatively better than most central bankers precisely because he does very little. So what I can tell these Africans who are checking out Israel’s central bank is:

  1. Don’t have a central bank.
  2. If you insist on having one, then just let it collect dust and don’t use it.

Let’s do an analogy here: After the Continental Army won the Revolutionary War, American colonists were begging for George Washington to be their new king. We think that’s crazy, but they knew no better. Get rid of King George, install a new King George. The idea of separation of powers was foreign to them. Even Alexander Hamilton, the guy on the $10 bill, wanted a king, and criticized the Constitution for lacking a provision for a monarch. Hamilton, by the way, was also a proponent of a Central Bank of the United States. Coincidence?

Washington, thank God, refused to be King, and instead we got the Constitution and separation of powers.

Fast forward to today and we want one guy to be in charge of everybody’s money. We think that if we don’t have this one guy in charge, everything will be anarchy. Just like the colonists thought that if you had separation of powers, you’d have anarchy. So we want to crown King Fisher as head of our central bank. We cannot conceive of not having a central bank, just like the Colonists could not conceive of not having a King.

How would money work without a central bank? Very simple. Competition. Different firms would rise coining different monies, and the one that is most trustworthy with the best purchasing power would be the one used in the end. It would probably end up being backed by some metal, if not be that metal itself. No one would use a fiat paper currency if they had the choice not to use it.

So…get rid of legal tender laws, take taxes off gold and silver, and let people use them as money like mankind has been doing for thousands of years. You don’t even have to “get rid” of the central bank of Israel per se. You just have to take away its monopoly control over the money supply and let competitors put Fischer out of business.

Fischer, by the way, was Ben Bernanke’s thesis adviser at MIT. Now the student controls the value of the dollar. The teacher controls the value of the shekel.

I say forget them both. I own gold and silver, something Ben and Stan can’t print away into oblivion.

Ari Abramowitz & Jeremy Gimpel betraying their belief in Feiglin for a knesset seat

rafifarber Israeli Politics , ,

I don’t normally use the word “betray” because it’s very strongly negative. It sounds bad. But this is what it seems that Abramowitz and Gimpel are doing by running in the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) list for Knesset. See their event here. I wouldn’t come out with such strong words if the two were not Feiglin supporters to begin with. I wouldn’t say that anyone currently in Bayit Yehudi is “betraying” anyone, because they never believed in Jewish Leadership in the first place. They believe in complaining while earning big tax money salaries.

I don’t know if Ari and Jeremy were Likud members in the past, but I’ve seen Ari at Feiglin events and I’ve heard of a loose connection between him and Manhigut Yehudit. But if they were, they are no longer. All they need, says the event, are 1,000 signatures of people to join the Bayit Hehudi party to secure their names on the list.

These 1,000 people they are looking for will get them something like the 4th or 5th slot on the list, maximum. They are also 1,000 people who will not be able to vote for Jewish Leadership in the Likud party, the party that actually rules the country. 1,000 more Likud members would be an enormous push in the direction of real Jewish Leadership for Israel. Ari and Jeremy could make that happen, but they have decided that getting a realistic slot on the Likud list is next to impossible for them, so they can more easily get that tax money Knesset Member salary (since that’s all it would be, as Bayit Yehudi is a totally irrelevant party) by joining an irrelevant party.

How irrelevant? Well, the Ulpana was just evacuated, and the “Jewish Home” party did nothing about it. Its leader is still in the government. So would Ari and Jeremy had they been on the list this time. So much for saving Zionism.

Ari, Jeremy – stop wasting your influence on your own political ambitions. Use it to bring those thousand people you need in to Likud instead of into your own political futures. You believe in Manhigut Yehudit, and you believe in Moshe Feiglin. So do the right thing and ditch the sector mentality.

Nobody has a right to health care

rafifarber Health Care, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

I was watching Bloomberg News yesterday. I would embed the video but I can’t find it after a 20 minute archive search. The video snippet was an interview of some guy that was saying that the Supreme Court would not overturn Obamacare. It wasn’t his prediction that interested me, but rather his principle. During the interview, he said something like this:

Once we decide that health care is a fundamental right, then implementing it is only a question of finances.

He is correct of course. If health care is a right, then government has the responsibility of providing it. The game then becomes how. The problem is his premise. Health care is not a right. The reason health care is not a right is that it requires somebody else’s services, and nobody has any right to anybody else’s services.

Suppose there are not enough doctors to provide enough health care services to everyone. If everyone has a right to health care, then by extension the government can force people to become doctors who do not want to be doctors. If everyone has a right to health care, then the government should make statistics regarding how many doctors the State needs to treat X amount of people. Factor in population growth, and medical schools will be forced to graduate a certain quota of doctors at minimum to provide for everyone else’s right to health care. If they fail to meet this quota, the administration should be put in prison for not providing for other people’s fundamental right to health care. Universities, by extension, will be forced to have X students take pre-med courses. If they do not meet their quota, the will have to force students who do not want to take pre-med courses, to indeed take them. If they don’t, these students should go to prison, because they refuse to provide for other people’s fundamental right to health care.

You can see here that assuming health care to be a fundamental right interferes with the actual fundamental right to liberty. People actually DO have a right to be free, and not imprisoned because they do not want to provide for other people’s health care.

Life, liberty, and equal treatment under the law are the only fundamental rights we have. They are fundamental rights because we were all created equal by God, and God created us to be His servants, not man’s servant. The right to one’s life is not the right to take something from someone else. It’s the right to not have something taken from you.

The right to one’s liberty is not a right to take something from someone else. It’s the right to not have something taken from you.

The supposed “right” to health care is indeed the right to take something from someone else. If we assume health care to be a right, then life and liberty are gone.

Health care is a service. It must be payed for voluntarily like any other service.