Absolute vs Relative. I see a resemblance in how the river flows around the massive rocks, yet the rocks refuse to be ignored.

So I’ve been reading a short collection of works called “Rothbard vs. The Philosophers” (available for free on Mises.org) and one of the sections is on relativism versus absolutism.  I was surprised to note that Mises had many relativistic leanings and was not surprised to see Rothbard’s critic of those.  I personally agree with Rothbard and am an absolutist.  I think most libertarians are now, though on that I am unsure.  As a Christian, I must also be an absolutist.  As I believe in a God grounded in absolutes.  Like Rothbard, I also believe that there are absolute ethical principles laid out in the nature of Man, unlike Rothbard I feel that these were put into man by a deity.

One of the issues I have with fellow Christians is that while we may all be absolutists, people rarely examine what the absolute principles are and how they can be included in our lives.  Yet this is vitally important to living out our Christian lives.  Without understanding the absolute principals instilled in us by Christ, how can we coherently and accurately live out Christ in us?  I think this is how you get Christians who advocated for Hitler, or on a much lesser note, advocate for aggressive, interventionist war in general.  While we may believe in absolutes and disregard relativism, we Christians often live as if we agree with relativism.  We don’t steal, yet we tax.   We don’t murder yet we bomb “terrorists” who have never left their villages in the middle east.  We don’t covet, yet we commend wealth restructuring.  We don’t make idols, yet we erect States as gods over us.

These issues aren’t issues of the heart as I think the intentions are generally okay.  These are issues of the mind.  We fail to see the connection between the absolute principles of God or nature, and our indirect actions through our idol the State.

The Dollar Meltdown, by Charles Goyette

While looking through a few books I read a couple of years ago I found the Dollar Meltdown by Charles Goyette.  I recommend the book with a couple of words of caution: if you are already steeped in Austrian Economics, Libertarianism and continue to seek this material out, then this book won’t tell you anything new.  If however you aren’t continually into this stuff, this book is a fantastic overview.  Below is a list of quotes I found in it worthwhile.  Most of the quotes are actually quotes of other people that Charles included; but I want to give credit where credit is due.

—–

Chapter 2:

The appearance of periodically recurring economic crises is the necessary consequence of repeatedly renewed attempts to reduce the “natural” rates of interest on the market by means of banking policy.
- Ludwig von Mises

… in our system of profit and loss, we cannot possibly think that the government should bail the banks out of bad loans they made, but allow them to keep the profits on the good ones.
- Milton Friedman

Chapter 3:

I place the economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared.
- Thomas Jefferson

The following is a list of books that I have read for the year 2013, as 2013 is still in progress this is obviously a list in progress.  Applicable links follow.

1. The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil – Frank Chodorov
   1. Amazon Kindle Link
   2. Mises.org free PDF Link
2. The Baby Owner’s Manual (Amazon Link)
3. Hamilton’s Curse – Thomas DiLorenzo
4. Nutrient Power: Heal your BioChemistry and Heal Your Brain – William J. Walsh, PhD
   1. Amazon Link
5. Anatomy of the State – Murray Rothbard
   1. Amazon Kindle Link
   2. Mises.org free PDF/Ebook/HTML Link
6. Aesop’s Fables
7. Rothbard vs The Philosophers Unpublished Writings on Hayek, Mises, Strauss, and Polanyi
8. Flat Broke
   1. Amazon Kindle Link
9. Off the Grid: Live in a Van, Truck, Trailer
   1. Amazon Kindle Link
10. The Origins of the Federal Reserve – Murray Rothbard
    1. Amazon Kindle Link
    2. Mises.org Free PDF/Ebook Link
11. Left, Right & the Prospects for Liberty – Murry Rothbard
    1. Amazon Kindle Link
    2. Mises.org Free PDF/Ebook/HTML Link
12. The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar – Murry Rothbard
    1. Amazon Link
    2. Mises.org free PDF Link
13. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man – John Perkins
    1. Amazon Link
14. Bourbon for Breakfast – Jeffrey Tucker (Audiobook)
    1. Amazon Link
    2. Laissez Faire Books Link
15. Economics in One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt
    1. Amazon Link
    2. Laissez Faire Books Link
    3. Chapter One Review Link
16. Anthem – Ayn Rand
    1. Amazon Kindle Link Free

The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson

The following is a list of commentary based on The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson.  This helps me personally by keeping together all the important details of each book I read and what I write about it.  I hope it serves to help you to if you want to find more information about a particular book.

1. Book Review
2. Book Quote List
3. No Commentary Yet. 

It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes by Jeffrey Tucker

Awhile back I read a fantastic collection of essays by Jeffrey Tucker called “It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes”.   Amazingly this book is available for FREE from Mises.org so please check it out and give it a read.  It’s a fast, entertaining read.  Below is a collection of quotes I found applicable to share.  For your refererenced pleasure, despite that while I read it as an EBook I went ahead and searched through the freely available PDF book and found page references for each of the below quotes.  Aren’t I nice?  … Well okay, it’s really just to calm my OCD.

Pg 17 – Scavengers of the Physical Universe
In Russia, he had learned to grab anything he found because there was a shortage in everything. He was hardly alone in this. The whole society was informed by this sense of valuation. There was no free market at work, so one could be sure of nothing. Socialism led to shortages and poverty: a perfect recipe for rampant materialism. I’m realizing now that we had more in common than I thought at the time. The only difference between us was in  what we accumulated. His passion was what I regarded as junk. My passion was for documents: papers, journals, magazines, and books. He thought of all these as luxury goods that could be foregone until life’s essentials were provided for.

Pg 22 – A Society of Mutual Benefactors
As sixteenth-century Spanish theologian Bartolomé de Albornoz, known mostly for his opposition to slavery, wrote,

Buying and selling is the nerve of human life that sustains the universe. By means of buying and selling the world is united, joining distant lands and nations, people of different languages, laws and ways of life. If it were not for these contracts, some would lack the goods that others have in abundance and they would not be able to share the goods that they have in excess with those countries where they are scarce.

The following is a non-comprehensive list of books that I have read for the year 2012.  I am doing this in 2013 and will obviously not be able to remember everything I’ve read, but I thought it might be nice to think about it and track it for 2013.  Applicable links follow.

1. God in the Dock – CS Lewis
   1. Amazon Link
   2. List of my  Commentary Link
2. Death by Government – R J Rummel
   1. Amazon Link
   2. List of my Commentary Link
3. The Circle Maker  – Mark Batterson
   1. Amazon Link
   2. List of my  Commentary Link
4. George MacDonald: An Anthology 365 Readings  - CS Lewis
   1. Amazon Link
   2. List of my Commentary Link
5. It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles & Public Crimes – Jeffrey Tucker
   1. Amazon Link
   2. Mises.org Link (Free!)
   3. List of my Commentary (N/A)
      

The following is part 2 (and the conclusion so far, until next discussion) of a long facebook discussion primarily about gold as money.  For Part 1, see here.

Brian

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=3921

That result is enabled by the money supply being inflated, which is bad, because it means that people can’t store value in money, and so they buy more consumer order goods, which borks our economy (like when we overbuy housing, as in right now).

When debt was secured by metal, we couldn’t have the same kind of results as the link above. And that’s a good thing, because it gives individuals power over their economic future in a way that fiat currency does not. And individuals make better decisions acting on their own behalf in their own interest than the Fed does or can.

There’s all my assertions and assumptions in one place!

Debt and GDP Change, Net-Net Quarterly (Source: The Market Ticker)