This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

Some Thoughts On Government And "Wealth Creation"

Tyler Durden's picture


All courtesy of The Privateer author Bill Buckler

The Essence



Alfred Jay Nock - Memoirs Of A Superfluous Man - 1943


A Declining Power?





The Reason For The Fix




* * *

And this simple visual addition from Zero Hedge:






- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:07 | 2618012 LULZBank
LULZBank's picture

Fuck the Wealth, WE print MONEY Bitchezz!!!

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:25 | 2618085 veyron
veyron's picture

What is wealth?

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:00 | 2618181 falak pema
falak pema's picture

marilyn monroe. 

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:44 | 2618308 DoChenRollingBearing
DoChenRollingBearing's picture




Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:01 | 2618532 TruthInSunshine
TruthInSunshine's picture









You are a den of vipers and thieves.




Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:33 | 2618645 francis_sawyer
francis_sawyer's picture

+ 1^


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:55 | 2618702 Jay Gould Esq.
Jay Gould Esq.'s picture

Outstanding quote.


A bitter irony indeed.

Mon, 07/16/2012 - 00:48 | 2619396 Raymond K Hessel
Raymond K Hessel's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 19:44 | 2618815 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

An abstracted token for social power.



Mon, 07/16/2012 - 02:01 | 2619436 Tom Green Swedish
Tom Green Swedish's picture








Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:12 | 2618038 MillionDollarBoner_
MillionDollarBoner_'s picture

There it goes again!



Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:17 | 2618061 THX 1178
THX 1178's picture



"I'm an RN"   --Richard Milhouse Nixon

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:17 | 2618054 WTFx10
WTFx10's picture

A well thought out plan?

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:32 | 2618102 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:57 | 2618351 Debugas
Debugas's picture



Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:57 | 2618939 Sparkey
Sparkey's picture



Mon, 07/16/2012 - 02:20 | 2619454 Tom Green Swedish
Tom Green Swedish's picture




Mon, 07/16/2012 - 00:49 | 2619398 Raymond K Hessel
Raymond K Hessel's picture

Can you say that in Engrish?

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:33 | 2618110 deflator
deflator's picture




Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:49 | 2618150 radicall
radicall's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:19 | 2618862 NidStyles
NidStyles's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 15:58 | 2618173 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:04 | 2618191 akak
akak's picture



Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:13 | 2618217 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:20 | 2618243 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:27 | 2618266 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:34 | 2618287 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:43 | 2618306 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:58 | 2618355 Tinky
Tinky's picture



Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:14 | 2618391 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:22 | 2618412 Tinky
Tinky's picture



Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:31 | 2618432 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:16 | 2618582 Tinky
Tinky's picture

agree completely

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:22 | 2618593 lizzy36
lizzy36's picture

Couldn't agree more with every single one of your comments.


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:24 | 2618874 NidStyles
NidStyles's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:42 | 2618909 Dburn
Dburn's picture




Mon, 07/16/2012 - 00:07 | 2619349 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture








Mon, 07/16/2012 - 12:35 | 2620576 Offthebeach
Offthebeach's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 22:36 | 2619154 mjk0259
mjk0259's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 23:39 | 2619308 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture




Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:03 | 2618369 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture






Mon, 07/16/2012 - 12:17 | 2620498 Offthebeach
Offthebeach's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:23 | 2618254 akak
akak's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:27 | 2618269 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:50 | 2618327 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture





Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:07 | 2618377 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:26 | 2618878 NidStyles
NidStyles's picture


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 22:23 | 2619128 Overfed
Overfed's picture



Mon, 07/16/2012 - 00:33 | 2619378 StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture


Mon, 07/16/2012 - 00:54 | 2619403 Raymond K Hessel
Raymond K Hessel's picture

WTF is US Citizenism?

Sounds lie Koch Bris shite to me.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:51 | 2618334 MrTouchdown
MrTouchdown's picture

Space travel, for example. The gov't threw up its hands and quit on it, while private business is moving it forward. It started out private (Werner von Braun's hobby), but gov't came in and took it over. Many of the other things you attribute to gov't were originally private ventures as well. Roads, railroads, police forces, fire fighters, hospitals, welfare programs - all private originally. Those products (like GPS) that you claim were made by gov't - they were created by contractors, which are private businesses that work for gov't, and would have been created even if gov't wasn't the signer of the checks.


You don't find it at all strange that the biggest bully with a gun always ends up with the most essential projects? How naiive. Or willfully blind. Or rather, perhaps you're benefiting from that gun now?

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:05 | 2618374 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture

Of course private individuals and companies did the work.  My whole point is that government funding (the dreaded collectivism) made it possible.  Now private companies are picking up the mantle in many of these things as it should be.  The public/private partnership works well.  Our country became very wealthy using this model.  Now show me a country that got rich with pure private investment in such things.  Can you name a single one?

P.S.  I am a small business owner and I do not derive any income or other benefit from the government.  I just happen to see beyond my own nose.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:18 | 2618405 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture

You may be able to see beyond your nose, but the only thing else on the horizon is your colon.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:23 | 2618415 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture

Another thoughtful argument reflecting your intellect.  Bravo.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:25 | 2618417 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture

At least you appreciate metaphorical cynical satire.

Mon, 07/16/2012 - 07:46 | 2619641 PoorByChoice
PoorByChoice's picture

Oh come on Rand, it was quite funny!

Big government has always required big or rapidly expanding private enterprise first else how can it build up?

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 22:25 | 2619134 Overfed
Overfed's picture

Yeah, those for-profit corporate owned prisons are great! /s

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 23:26 | 2619279 MrTouchdown
MrTouchdown's picture

You appear to be making the assumption that these things could only be done at the behest of gov't. In the case of roads, railroads, hospitals, space exploration, welfare, and (why not toss another on the pile?) internet - these things were already happening and then gov't came in and monopolized it. You seem to think that prior to gov't involvement these things were not happening. They were.

Our country got rich at the time of these things, but in the beginning of many of these things, it also was the only industrial powerhouse that wasn't currently rebuilding from having the bejesus bombed out of it (via the 30 years war, Nepoleonic wars, WWI and WWII). The coincidence of public/private partnership and our wealth generation could just be correlation - not causation as you make the case for.

The last "country" that I can think of that had an opportunity to engage in pure private investment (without the interferance of gov't) was in a patch of desert near Lebanon between the first and second Crusades. The area became a trade hub between east and west and made a ton of money. Muslims were marrying Christians. The local European lords left it alone and the Turks left it alone so as to not ruin a good thing. It was truly unique for the region. 

Then more European lords came with the intent to steal and control it all (causing the second crusade) and ruined it for everybody. Kind of like the gov't taking over the internet, or railroad building, or welfare, or healthcare, or many other such projects. Perhaps the reason it is so hard to find an example of pure private investment is because gov't sees the immediate gains every time it's tried and latches on like a tick to a fat dog - causing lyme disease and the premature death of the dog.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:31 | 2618879 Dburn
Dburn's picture

You went a tad too far with that Space travel. Get back behind the line. There is no fricking way that private industry would have ever gone to the Moon. from 1961-1969. The fact is that Govt is paying the tab for private industry right now to supply the space stations it already built. You still have to have 200G to maybe , one of these days , go 30 minutes into near space. Russia makes a pretty penny from our govt to put our astronauts into space and those from other countries who could have never developed a space program like we have today?

GPS? Please give me a break. That depends solely on the massive govt investment in the early mistakes that would have eaten private companies alive. They finally got enough satellites in space. Yes many of the satellites are now privately financed but ask them if they would trust their 300M investments to a couple of young outfits to shoot into space that makes all of GPS possible. Making the electronics to make it work down here was again a govt contractor.

Lets bifurcate private business from a privatized business. Private business has to raise capital from private sources and depends on private capital and income to make sales . A privatized business is nothing more than crony capitalism. It has a simple test too. Would the company survive one week if all taxpayer  financing and business stopped. It's a real simple test. Try it before opening your mouth about hallucinations you have over Ayn Rand and  private markets ability to muster the resources that may only pay back on a macro basis too many people not just a few over decades instead of  a few quarters.

The space program started in the 50s with German Rocket Scientists stolen from Germany. It took billions in today's dollars just to get a unmanned rocket to orbit and control the orbit. Start right now listing any and all  single private ventures that has invested well over 100-200B and still doesn't have a pay off (besides Microsofts endless acquisitions of companies that will be immediately "accretive to income". Never before has a private company invested so much in 10 years and gotten so little. They have written most of the investments off.!) Go ahead. No one is holding their breath.

There is absolutely nothing worse in any kind of society as ideological purists. You have absolutely no data to show that there is no need for Govt. If your so anxious for it, why not move to Somalia.

Wed, 07/18/2012 - 00:41 | 2627044 MrTouchdown
MrTouchdown's picture

Your name-calling belies your lack of faith in your own ideology. I'll just number your paragraphs and answer that way.

   1. 200G is nothing. Branson spends that per day on blow. You imply that nobody wanted to go to space prior to the gov't deciding "we gonna do it" - that is patently false. The only reason we weren't already in space is because the gov't didn't allow research into the kind of rocketry that could get the job done - except as a defense contractor. Even today, that is super-highly restricted.

    2. Private companies don't make the mistakes that gov't funded projects do. Even if they did - the potential for that tech is good enough that there would always be more investors to "try again". Anyhow, by your own admission in #1 - it would cost about 200G to put a satellite in low orbit via private means.

   3. Gov't has to raise capital from private sources too. Have you ever read ZeroHedge? If the company can't make a profit, then it has a crappy business model. If it has a crappy model, but the product has backers that are interested in it, then a competitor will make a better business model. Just because gov't picked the company with a crappy model, doesn't mean there wasn't a good one out there. Ask a military vet what they think about the gear they're given - you'll be told something about "lowest bidder".

  4.  The space program began with Werner von Braun - we just stole him in the 50's after WWII. The Germans used him in that war to make the V2 and before that his eternal dream was to go to the moon and that's why he researched rocketry his whole life. Again - gov't took over a private industry full of promise and then claimed its discovery. As to the second part - what's wrong with failure? Only gov't insists that the first try will be the last. With private business, the next business will build upon what was found out by the last one that failed. This is why private enterprise is so much more efficient and works so much better - it builds on past successes AND failures. Were the space race allowed to private industry sooner we may never have had a Challenger accident.

  5.  You have no evidence to prove that there is no need for cancer. Do you see how stupid that is? You can't prove a negative. You knock Somalia, but it grew faster than us last year and the year before. That, despite being in a 3-way war with the UN and the Muslim Brotherhood. Pretty good for a people that still burns wood and dried dung to cook their food.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 23:31 | 2619294 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

After WW2, Hong Kong was poor compared to Great Britain. The Brits kept the HK government small and unobtrusive.


A decade or so ago, the per capita income of HK surpassed Great Britain's.

Mon, 07/16/2012 - 12:22 | 2620520 Offthebeach
Offthebeach's picture

Ditto post war Germany. Run by Austrian economists. Told Galbraith to get lost. He went to India and supported their central planning.Marxists

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 19:12 | 2618751 TWSceptic
TWSceptic's picture

Where would we have been without government? Ever asked yourself that? What if everything government has done, would have been done better (and earlier). What don't we have because of it?


But forget those difficult questions. Let's focus on the things government has done right, like for example... well.. no , maybe... hm no. Sorry.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 22:59 | 2619225 maximin thrax
maximin thrax's picture takes either willful ignorance or intentional deception to claim that government creates nothing.

Government doesn't create WEALTH. Converting dirt trails into turnpikes and making rivers navigatable comes after people have figured out how to make a living without them, producing the tax revenue to make the improvements.

It can create an interstate system, for example, using somebody else's wealth that might make that taxpayer more wealthy, but that system has no value unless private enterprise is poised to take advantage. Prior to the interstates, people conducted commerce with existing transportation systems to generate the very wealth required to improve future transport.

And in selecting the interstate routes, government picks winners and losers, as interconnected cities get bigger while those left out lose business to the winning cities. Yet people in declining towns that missed out on the improved movement of people and freight must still pay federal taxes. So there's not necessarily a net improvement from government "investment."

If goverment wants to set us all up with wind and solar power, it will freeze out coal, gas and nuclear. You can say of the all-green energy system, "Look at what government can do that we would not have attempted alone," as if something of value was created.  Shutting down coal in favor of championing solar, for example, will only triple or quadrouple the cost of energy, which no matter how you look at it diminishes wealth overall. Only by getting out of the picking of winners and losers can all viable energy generation options be pursued, and the resultant net increase in available energy add to the wealth of the nation.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:36 | 2618292 orangegeek
orangegeek's picture

When the down market hits, these politicians will have a lot to answer to.  And no government master plan is going to be able to artificially turn this around.


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:53 | 2618339 Debugas
Debugas's picture

the government does produce some very useful and important things

to say the government produces nothing is a lie

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:14 | 2618393 Pure Evil
Pure Evil's picture

Yes, the government produces poverty. Just ask the Cubans or the North Koreans. And, in another four years of Obama, we can ask US Citizenism.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 23:04 | 2619235 maximin thrax
maximin thrax's picture

And slaves. Lots of slaves. Anyone whose production is enjoyed by somebody else without compensation is a slave. Government redistributionism is institutionalized slavery.

If you aren't poor, you are a slave. And if you aren't a slave, you must be poor. Not a happy choice between the two.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 17:15 | 2618399 JR
JR's picture

“The crowning glory of Mr Geithner’s latest contribution to the debate goes like this: ‘This strategy is a recipe to make us a declining power.’ If the ‘us’ here refers to Mr Geithner, Mr Bernanke, Mr Obama and all the rest, we couldn’t agree more. And the sooner the better! ... The welfare state can no longer be sustained by the dwindling wealth-creating capacity of the economy. The jig is up.”—Bill Buckler

Another Great! Buckler post.

Mr. Geithner et al. drive a horse that can’t win. Geithner’s idea is to get people in the harness, working all the time just to make their banker payments. But the horse is balking; unless people get a more just system than they have now, without the banker cartel riding parasite while holding the whip hand of fiat money manipulation over their backs, they won’t support the system.

“It has been said that at the time of man’s first written records, the use of silver as money was a tradition so ancient that no man could recall a time when it had not served as money. For close to six thousand years, silver provided the framework for the monetary systems of the world…  Increased trade and commerce afforded by the white metal, in turn, led to wealth, power and influence being amassed into a given region. Primarily, it was silver, the money of everyday commerce, which led to the rise of every great empire. This has been true right through to our present era….

“While it can be accepted that great empires were built on the integrity and availability of their silver money, it is undeniable that they have all fallen upon the abandonment of the same…. The very nations that were made great and prosperous trading centers through the use of silver money, are today massive debtor nations.” – Philip Judge, historian

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:28 | 2618608 Cadavre
Cadavre's picture

Wealth is FINITE. IT HAS NEVER, IS NEVER , AND WILL NEVER EVER BE ANY MORE OR LESS THAN IT EVER HAS BEEN. And any bods be thinking otherwise should immediately contact me about the profit potential in an exciting new product, "Instant Water" (just add water!), franchise. Availability is limited and on a first come basis.

Wealth can be transfered, like wealth transferred to Apple when the innovation and aesthetic purity offered by the iPhone caused Nokia and Blackberry customers to swith. THe iPhone didn't create wealth, it just earned a bigger pipe, for the time being, in the rivers formed by the wealth (re)cycle.

Tokens of wealth can be created, like Central Bank Notes, But that just dilutes the the value of the finite wealth that we're told, though not yet tungsten assured, that represent shares in the glob of "real wealth".

Wealth may not even be something that can be converted to asset. At best it is someone exchanging tokens they converted from their store of "time", for something someone else converted from their store of time.

The intangible hierarchy:



TOur very famous political civil service employed CSPAN cast, meaning the prez, the congress and judiciary cannot create wealth. Noone can. And it supposed to be immoral to counterfeit "wealth tokens", like sovereigns. But they're doing it anyway. They're diluting sovereigns and transferring truckloads of them to their buds in the banker mafia. For get the bailout. Seventy seven percent of the Morgues net revenues comes from us, yeah "us", in the form of IRS transfers as subsidies and grants. GE, in 2010, report 26 Billion in profits. Got 5 Billion is cash transfers from the IRS, bumping profits to 31 Billion. More than half of GE's employees are not in the US. GE is in China with a truckload of patents belonging to "us". Do you really think the Chinese will loan the C-SPAN Jesters a trillion bucjs without any "real collater". That full faith and credit scam prayer ain't some the Chines indulge in.

If uninsured risk were treated as a cost, Wall Street would be insolvent. Of course, and most of the time, uninsured risk is insured, albeit by bevies of tiers of nests of other un-collateralized derivatives.

The coumterfeited wealth has priced up the market, fer sure, to the extent that even our comedic mild mannered establishment and shameless equity-carny barking lapdogs at CNBC, although not indexed as sourced on CNBC, that the FED's print is responsible for 50% of the so-called equity market. (an overly enthusiastic anlysis if anyone be asking).

Me-self - still trying to understand how a barely half EUR cent gain to the USD had the pit believing g*d was shagging them to glory, again, on Friday.

Wealth is finite. Nobody creates it - they just get bigger flows of existing wealth from the eternal wealth (re)cycle! Take away the dividend and a stock, with exception of voting privileges, and you got a derivative - a very diluted un-asset - a peice of paper - a marker - a bet someone will eventually buy it before you loose your ass on it. And voting? What Voting? Does anyone know anyone with enough shares of anything to affect the outcome of a shareholder meeting?. The board owns, or has proxy to, 99.99% of the stock, so nobody you any of us hang with has enouogh shares in anything to affect any outcome, anytime, anywhere.

But- but at least you exercised your f*cking, and always "fruitless" rights, as a share holder. You jacked off and pretended you got laid.

Our political gadflies, though, having always, and more so now and more than ever and ever desperately straining that one last reach for "the" mythical gold ring - like something a bottom feeding big box church going "consumer" would do, They really think some big bad assed white beard in the Sky Mall will "protect" them from the consequences of their weakness. Great way for beef cow in the last tango chute to feel just before the "hammer" smushes-up their blissfully waiting foramen magnum THey will go as the grea=ts that preceded them, fer instance, like when Mussolini was so elegantly dismissed from the duties of office.

All a congressional investigation does is amend the exisisting bribe agreements congress has with witnesses.

The specter of having one's familial headstones be pilgrimage urinals should not be as remote to some as it is.

Keep it wet!


Sun, 07/15/2012 - 19:48 | 2618819 deflator
deflator's picture


 It took me a long "time" as in painfully learning hard lessons to figure out the "time" component.

 Clearly, as it were, "timing" is everything.

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 18:33 | 2618646 Dr. Sandi
Dr. Sandi's picture



It is only easier to sieze wealth for as long as wealth is being produced. When the desire for and means of wealth creation has all but disappeared through ongoing seizure, the State itself will disappear.

As little kids like myself ask on a long, boring journey...

"Are we there yet?"

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 20:20 | 2618865 Snakeeyes
Snakeeyes's picture

The Fed and Federal government already specialize in wealth redistrbution. Look at the housing market!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mon, 07/16/2012 - 02:33 | 2619466 Tom Green Swedish
Tom Green Swedish's picture

I am sorry but we are technically fucked.  Look at the president.  He's a socialist with no track record.  This is who the people vote for to implement policies in this country.  What a bunch of fools.  No Hope left.

Tue, 07/17/2012 - 03:39 | 2623361 silverdragon
silverdragon's picture

Good government is good government and some countries are actually well run. Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, throw in a couple of Scandinavian/Norther European countries and a couple more Central European countries.  There is lots of room for improvement but overall they are run better than the other 90%.

The problem with the US is both political parties are grossly incompetent. They spend money they don't have. To fix the US it requires an honest person to come along, slash military spending, slash welfare spending and fix the tax system. Get a little surplus going pay down the debts etc.

Aint gunna happen though as there isn't an honest person in government.


Tue, 08/14/2012 - 03:14 | 2703125 Financialpolicy
Financialpolicy's picture

One of the first ways of beginning that process would be to repeal all of the anti-opportunity legislation that has been foisted on the American people in the past few years.


Thanks Team
For more info <a href="">Financial Plannings</a>
